THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


MONTAIGNE 


"PIONEERS   IN   EDUCATION" 

An  important  series  of  six  volumes,  of  value 
to  every  student  of  pedagogy 

BY    GABRIEL    COMPAYRE 
Each  volume,  90  cents  act;  by  mail,  $1.00 


J.  J.  ROUSSEAU 

And  Education  by  Nature 

HERBERT    SPENCER 

And  Scientific  Education 

PESTALOZZI 

And  Elementary  Education 

HERBART 

And  Education  by  Instruction 

MONTAIGNE 

And  Education  of  the  Judgment 

HORACE   MANN 

And  the  Public  School  System  of  the 
United  States 


|2*  Crotoell  &  Co, 

NEW  YORK 


From   a    po-t-a;t   in   Ire    "  Depol    Des   Archives   du    RovaJ-T-->   '   a"    Pj-  s. 


PIONEERS    IN    EDUCATION 

MONTAIGNE 

AND  EDUCATION  OF  THE  JUDGMENT 

BY 

GABRIEL  COMPAYRE 

CORRESPONDENT  OF  THE  INSTITUTE  ;  DIRECTOR  OF  THE  ACADEMY 

OF  LYONS;    AUTHOR  OF   "PSYCHOLOGY  APPLIED   TO 

EDUCATION,"  "LECTURES  ON  PEDAGOGY," 

"A  HISTORY  OF  PEDAGOGY,"  ETC. 


TRANSLATED  BY 
J.    E.   MANSION 


NEW    YOKK 

THOMAS  Y.   CKOWELL  &  CO. 
PUBLISHERS 


COPYRIGHT,  1908, 
BY  THOMAS  Y.  CEOWELL  &  COMPANY. 


PUBLISHED,  APKIL,  1908. 


Education 
Library 

UB 


CONTENTS  AND  SUMMARY 


PAGE 


PREFACE  xi 

I.  MONTAIGNE'S  CHARACTER 

The  character  and  general  ideas  of  Montaigne.  —  That 
by  his  ideas,  taken  as  a  whole,  he  was  one  of  the  edu- 
cators of  the  French  mind.  —  Sketch  of  his  life.  — 
History  of  his  mind.  —  Contrasts  and  contradic- 
tions. —  Nothing  exemplary  about  him,  either  as  a 
husband  or  as  a  father.  —  On  the  other  hand,  he  was 
a  devoted  son  and  a  loving  friend.  —  Montaigne  and 
Etienne  de  la  Boe'tie.  —  Montaigne's  friendly  piety. 
—  What  we  are  to  think  of  his  heart.  —  Motives  for 
which  he  withdrew  within  his  castle  (1570).  —  His 
public  life.  —  Montaigne  mayor  of  Bordeaux  (1581- 
1585).  —  His  "languid  fondness"  for  business. — 
The  plague  in  Bordeaux  (1585).  —  He  does  not 
wash  his  hands  of  contemporary  events.  —  His  atti- 
tude amidst  factions.  —  His  dealings  with  the  po- 
litical men  of  his  time.  —  Relative  neutrality  and 
absolute  independence.  —  His  political  loyalty.  — • 
His  relations  with  the  king  of  Navarre.  —  His  pro- 
fessed contempt  for  human  nature.  —  Judgments 
on  his  contemporaries.  —  His  narrow  views  on  the 
moral  and  intellectual  worth  of  women.  —  He  con- 
tradicts himself,  and  does  them  justice.  —  Mile,  de 
Gournay,  his  "daughter  of  alliance."  —  Montaigne 
lived  chiefly  in  the  society  of  books.  —  His  abun- 


vi  CONTENTS  AND   SUMMARY 

PAGB 

dant  reading.  —  His  preference  for  poets,  historians, 
and  moralists.  —  Curiosity  one  of  the  distinctive 
characteristics  of  his  mind.  —  The  Diary  of  his  Ital- 
ian journey.  —  Montaigne's  alleged  laziness.  — 
Wherein  he  was  an  egotist.  —  Extreme  need  of  inde- 
pendence. —  Some  little  vanity.  —  Why  he  spoke  of 
himself  at  such  length.  —  He  studies  mankind  while 
he  studies  himself.  —  Montaigne's  moderation.  — 
He  spares  his  will.  —  And  yet  is  not  unacquainted 
with  vigorous  hatred.  —  His  invectives  against 
medicine  and  doctors.  —  Indecision  of  his  fluctuat- 
ing and  ever  varying  thought.  —  Inconsistency  of 
his  character.  —  A  certain  frivolity.  —  His  lessons 
to  old  age.  —  He  has  no  fear  of  death.  —  Montaigne 
and  Pascal.  —  Did  he  believe  in  immortality  ?  — 
Montaigne's  religion.  —  Outward  submission  to  the 
dogmas  and  practices  of  the  Roman  Catholic  church. 
—  At  heart,  little  faith,  and  a  kind  of  scepticism.  — 
The  Genius  of  Paganism.  —  Montaigne  is  a  ration- 
alist. —  His  ethical  doctrine  is  based  on  conscience 
and  reason.  —  His  motto :  "What  do  I  know?"  .  1 

II.  MONTAIGNE'S  PEDAGOGY. 

His  pedagogy  was  not  for  the  people.  —  The  "Institu- 
tion of  Children,"  a  plan  of  castle  education,  with 
a  few  general  views.  —  The  potency  of  education  is 
limited.  —  Action  of  heredity  and  of  natural  incli- 
nations. —  Criticism  of  the  education  of  his  day.  — 
Campaign  against  pedantry,  —  against  scholasti- 
cism. —  Reaction  against  the  Middle  Ages.  —  Edu- 
cation should  be  broad,  and  human.  —  Xeither  a 
grammarian  nor  a  logician,  but  a  man.  —  The  culti- 
vation of  judgment.  —  In  what  different  senses 
Montaigne  takes  the  word  "judgment."-  -To  judge 


CONTENTS  AND  SUMMARY  vii 


is  to  think  for  oneself :  it  is  to  think  rightly ; 
it  is  to  be  fit  to  act  rightly.  —  Criticism  of  instruc- 
tion based  purely  on  memory.  —  Knowledge  should 
be  assimilated.  —  Rectitude  of  the  mind.  —  A  head 
well  trained  rather  than  well  filled.  —  Judgment 
the  possession  of  a  critical  mind.  —  Moral  judgment. 

—  All  studies  subordinated  to  the  teaching  of  ethics. 

—  What  profit  did  Montaigne  himself  derive  from 
the  cultivation  of  judgment?  —  Montaigne's  prac- 
tical pedagogy.  —  By  what  means  should  judgment 
be    cultivated  ?  —  Initiative    left    to    the    child.  — 
Appeal  to  personal  reflection.  —  Few  formal  lessons. 
Observation    and    experience.  —  The    frequentation 
of  men.  —  Observation  of  things.  —  Books.  —  How 
they  should  be  read.  —  That  they  should  busy,  not 
the  memory,  but  the  judgment.  —  Study  of  moral 
philosophy.  —  It  is  accessible  to  the  youngest  chil- 
dren. —  Practical  apprenticeship  to  virtue.  —  Medita- 
tion and  self-communion.  —  "Hold  on  to  yourself." 

—  Contradictions    of     Montaigne     on     the     defini- 
tion of  moral  conduct  and  of  virtue.  —  Epicurean- 
ism and  stoicism.  —  Of  pleasant  and  easy  virtue, 
along  roads  easy  to  tread.  —  Of  stern  virtue,  along 
rugged  paths.  —  No  well-defined  plan  of  studies.  — 
We  must  wait  until  the  judgment  is  formed,  to  be- 
gin to  study  on  special  lines.  —  Montaigne  is  apt  to 
somewhat  undervalue  science.  —  He  shakes  off  the 
yoke   of   Latinism.  —  Latin   had   been   his   mother 
tongue.  —  And  yet  he  concludes  that  it  is  better  to 
begin  by  studying  French,  and  even  foreign  modern 
languages.  —  Little  grammar.  —  Montaigne's  rheto- 
ric. —  Physical    education.  —  Health    is    the    most 
valuable  of  man's  assets.  —  Hardening  of  the  body. 

—  What  school  discipline  ought  to  be.  —  No  cor- 


viii  CONTENTS  AND  SUMMARY 

PAGE 

poral  punishment.  —  A  mild  severity.  —  The  edu- 
cation of  women.  —  His  mean  and  narrow  views.  — 
What  Montaigne  lacked :  love  for  children.  —  He 
does  not  love  them  until  they  have  grown  up.  — 
Montaigne  lacking  in  feeling  for  the  beauties  of 
nature.  —  His  attitude  towards  art.  —  The  educa- 
tion he  advocates  is  rather  superficial,  strikes  an  aver- 
age, "a  la  frangaise" 60 

III.  MONTAIGNE'S  INFLUENCE. 

What  is  modern  in  his  ideas.  —  Extraordinary  success 
of  the  Essays.  —  Montaigne  founded  a  pedagogical 
school :  Locke,  Rousseau,  etc.  —  Sainte-Beuve,  and 
Montaigne's  funeral  train.  —  We  must  include  some 
foreigners,  Byron,  Emerson,  Nietzsche.  —  The  ideas 
of  Montaigne  forestalled  those  of  Pascal,  Fenelon, 
etc.  —  His  style  one  of  the  elements  of  his  success. 

—  Montaigne  is  original,  in  spite  of  his  borrowings 
from  the  ancients.  —  He  had  little  faith  in  progress. 

—  And  yet  he  prepared  it.  —  His  prophetic  views.  — 
He  is  interested  in  mechanical  arts.  —  Other  novel- 
ties. —  Enlightened     patriotism.  —  He     sings     the 
praises  of  Paris.  —  His  method  of  reasoning.  —  He 
is  the  promoter  of  introspective  psychology  and  of 
the  observation  of  the  conscious  self.  —  He  touched 
on  most  pedagogical  questions  with  a  modern  out- 
look. —  Though  an  innovator  in  pedagogy,  he  is  a 
conservative    in    politics.  —  And    yet    occasionally 
speaks  a  revolutionary  language.  —  Interview  with 
notable  Americans.  —  What  he  thinks  of  the  Span- 
ish methods  of  conquest.  —  Shakespeare  copies  him 
in  a  passage  of   The  Tempest.  —  His  tendency  to 
praise  primitive  life  and  natural  law.  —  His  admira- 
tion for  the  sturdy  souls  of  the  people.  —  Peasants. 


CONTENTS  AND  SUMMARY  ix 

PAGE 

—  He  ascribes  too  much  to  "fortune,"  i.e.  to  exte- 
rior circumstances.  —  He  does  not  allow  enough  for 
the  exercise  of  the  human  will.  —  What  he  would 
have  thought  of  the  success  of  his  book,  and  of 
his  critics.  —  Guizot  and  Guillaume  Guizot.  —  Dr. 
Payen.  —  Mr  Griin.  —  Mr.  Edrne  Champion.  — 
Mr.  Emile  Faguet 104 

BIBLIOGRAPHY  .  137 


PEEFACB 

EVERYTHING  has  been  said  regarding  Montaigne, 
and  to  wish  to  speak  of  him  again  requires  some 
boldness.  Yet  it  is  impossible  to  deny  him,  in  our 
gallery  of  "Pioneers  in  Education,"  the  place  to 
which  he  has  a  right. 

No  doubt  he  gave  us  only  a  sketch.  He  did  not 
go  deeply  into  the  problem  of  education;  but  he 
was  full  of  its  importance,  and  reverts  to  it  con- 
tinually in  many  a  chapter  of  the  Essays. 

He  is  in  no  way  a  dogmatic  theorist.  In  all 
things  he  is  a  dilettante.  He  idled  along  through 
the  world  of  ideas,  with  the  marvellous  resources 
of  his  erudition,  with  the  impulsive  raciness  of  a 
keen  and  original  mind.  He  "tickled"  himself, 
as  he  says,  with  his  imaginings.  But  in  the  matter 
of  education  he  shows  unaccustomed  gravity,  and 
this  is  certainly  the  subject  on  which  he  varied 
least.  On  how  many  pedagogical  questions  has  he 
not  left  some  deep  or  epigrammatic  utterance,  and 
of  quite  modern  tendency? 


xii  PREFACE 

He  founded  a  school  of  pedagogy  to  which  belong, 
whatever  evil  they  may  have  spoken  of  him,  the 
Recluses  of  Port-Royal,  the  mild  Fe"nelon,  the  wise 
Locke,  and  even  the  revolutionist  Rousseau.  And 
that  school  is  the  school  of  common  sense,  the  school 
which  subordinates  instruction  to  education,  mem- 
ory to  judgment,  science  to  conscience,  and  all 
studies  to  ethical  teaching.  "If  the  child's  soul  is 
not  put  into  better  trim,  I  would  as  soon  see  him 
playing  tennis  as  studying." 

The  Essays,  explored  though  they  have  been  by 
a  host  of  commentators,  are  an  inexhaustible  mine 
of  impressions  and  ideas.  The  task  of  extracting 
the  marrow  therefrom  is  an  endless  one.  We  have 
drawn  from  them  with  full  hands,  and  it  is  by  quo- 
tations especially  that  we  shall  attempt  to  reproduce 
the  features  of  Montaigne's  moral  physiognomy, 
and  to  define  his  views  on  education.  Some  of  these 
may  appear  commonplace;  they  were  not  so  in 
his  day.  Wrapt  in  an  enchanting  style,  they  have 
not  aged;  "they  still  smile  to  the  reader  in  their 
fresh  novelty." 

Besides,  there  is  some  interest  in  opposing  the 
ideas  of  a  sixteenth-century  educator  to  those  which 
are  current  to-day.  Lastly,  let  us  add  that,  as  time 
flows  on  and  opinions  change,  the  same  book  is 
interpreted  in  different  ways  by  those  who  read  it. 


PREFACE  xiii 

In  a  certain  sense  it  becomes  new  and  different 
when  consciences  animated  by  a  new  spirit  cast 
their  light  upon  it.  The  Essays  are  like  a  landscape, 
the  aspect  of  which  changes  with  the  different 
hours  of  the  day,  according  to  the  light  which  falls 
upon  it,  but  which  is  ever  pleasant  to  look  upon, 
in  the  variety  of  its  successive  and  ever  changing 
appearances. 


MONTAIGNE 


MONTAIGNE'S  CHARACTER 

MONTAIGNE  is  not  an  educationist  solely  because 
he  has  sketched  offhand  a  plan  for  the  education 
of  children.  He  is  one  also  —  and  perhaps  most 
of  all  —  by  the  action  which  his  ideas  taken  as  a 
whole  have  exercised  for  three  centuries  on  his  in- 
numerable readers.  There  is  no  book  the  influence 
of  which  has  made  so  deep  a  mark,  for  better  or  for 
worse,  on  the  French  mind,  as  that  of  the  Essays. 
How  many  precepts  of  Montaigne's  have  passed 
into  our  everyday  wisdom,  and  form  a  part  of  our 
moral  inheritance !  Should  not  the  Essays,  that 
moral  biography  in  which  a  man  of  extraordinary 
intelligence  lays  himself  bare  in  all  the  variety  of 
his  feelings,  be  considered  as  a  book  for  the  educa- 
tion of  all  men?  While  he  draws  his  own  likeness 
with  absolute  sincerity,  "from  head  to  foot,"  with 
a  directness  at  times  shameless,  in  his  "hunger" 
to  reveal  himself,  "probing  the  inner  man  to  the 
very  bowels,"  no  more  discreet  regarding  his  faults 

i 


2  MONTAIGNE 

than  regarding  his  qualities,  Montaigne,  on  many 
a  point,  offers  us  examples,  and  gives  us  rules  of 
conduct  by  which  the  man  of  the  world  of  all  times 
may  profit.  And  this  moralist  has  all  the  more  in- 
fluence on  men's  minds  in  that  he  lays  no  claim  to 
impose  his  thought  upon  them.  He  does  not  preach ; 
he  does  not  even  give  advice ;  but  he  works  his  way 
into  the  imagination  of  all  those  that  study  him ;  he 
envelops  them  by  his  vigour  and  strength,  and  also 
by  the  happy  grace  of  his  deep  or  witty  utterances. 
He  by  no  means  poses  as  a  model  of  virtue,  be 
it  either  Christian  or  pagan:  "I  am  neither  an 
angel  nor  a  Cato."  He  has  escaped  neither  the 
passions  nor  the  weaknesses  of  common  men.  But, 
through  the  very  acknowledgment  of  his  moral 
backslidings,  which  he  owns  to  so  frequently  in  a 
book  a  large  part  of  which  might  just  as  well  have 
for  title  the  Memoirs  or  Confessions  of  Montaigne, 
he  believes  that  he  is  accomplishing  a  useful  work. 
By  showing  how  not  to  do  it,  so  to  speak,  he  hopes 
to  cure  the  faults  of  his  fellow-men,  as  he  lays  bare 
his  own.  "It  will  profit  others,"  he  says,  "to  avoid 
imitating  me.  ..."  -"There  is  more  instruction 
to  be  had  from  the  avoidance  of  evil  examples  than 
from  the  imitation  of  those  that  are  good."  And 
again:  "Wise  men  can  learn  more  from  fools  than 
fools  from  wise  men.  ." 


MONTAIGNE  3 

He  studiously  disclaims  any  pretensions  to  dog- 
matize: "This  is  no  doctrine,  but  merely  my  own 
fancies,  shapeless  and  tentative,"  -  elsewhere  he 
will  call  them  "the  bees  in  my  bonnet."  And  yet 
he  occasionally  hints  that  his  writings  are  imme- 
diately concerned  with  the  amelioration  of  man- 
kind, and  that  by  some  of  his  reflections  at  least  he 
is  working  for  the  amelioration  of  his  fellows. 
"How  many  times,  when  angry  at  some  action 
which  civility  prohibited  me  from  reproving  openly, 
I  have  given  vent  to  my  feelings  in  these  pages,  not 
without  some  purpose  of  educating  the  public!" 

Before  expounding  Montaigne's  special  views  on 
education  properly  so-called,  let  us  then  read  the  Es- 
says through  again ;  let  us  renew  acquaintance  with 
the  man,  such  as  he  has  painted  himself,  and  with  the 
general  tendencies  of  his  mind.  Let  us  tell  what 
he  was,  and  what  he  thought.  In  short,  let  us  give  a 
sketch  of  his  character,  and  glance  at  his  philosophy. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  review  in  detail  his  unevent- 
ful life.1  It  would  take  too  long  to  collect  in  this 

1  Montaigne  was  born  at  the  castle  of  Montaigne,  in  Perigord, 
on  the  28th  of  February,  1533.  He  died  there  on  the  13th  of 
September,  1592,  of  the  quinsy.  He  entered  the  "College  de 
Guyenne"  in  1539,  at  the  age  of  six,  and  left  it  in  1546.  In  1555, 
at  the  age  of  twenty-two,  he  was  appointed  councillor  at  the  Cour 
des  Aides  of  Pe>igueux;  then,  in  1557,  councillor  at  the  Parliament 
of  Bordeaux.  He  resigned  this  office  in  1570,  and  spent  the 


4  MONTAIGNE 

place  the  results  of  the  researches  which  the  curious 
have  directed  to  every  nook  and  cranny  of  his 
existence, — to  his  ancestry,  his  friendships,  his  castle 
of  Montaigne,  and  even  the  nature  of  his  physical 
infirmities;  in  a  word,  to  everything  relating  ever 
so  remotely  to  this  interesting  personality.  Every- 
thing has  been  rummaged  and  ferreted  out.  And 
yet  one  of  the  men  who  in  our  day  has  made  the 
closest  study  and  acquired  the  most  intimate  know- 
ledge of  the  circumstances  of  Montaigne's  life,  who 
spent  thirty  years  in  gathering  material  for  a  com- 
prehensive work  which  remained  unfinished,  Dr. 
Payen,  wrote,  in  1851,  that  uto  write  his  biography 
was  as  yet  an  impossible  task."  1 

There  still  remain,  indeed,  some  obscure  points 
in  his  life,  in  particular  what  became  of  him  when 
in  1546,  at  the  age  of  thirteen,  he  had  ended  his 
school  studies  at  the  College  de  Guyenne,  at  Bor- 
deaux. It  is  supposed  that  he  then  studied  law, 
probably  at  Toulouse,  but  this  is  not  certain. 

If  the  external  history  of  Montaigne's  life  raises 

remainder  of  his  life  in  retirement  in  his  castle,  leaving  his  retreat 
only  to  be  mayor  of  Bordeaux  from  1581  to  1585,  and  to  visit 
Italy  (1580-1581).  — The  first  two  books  of  the  Essays  appeared 
in  1580,  and  the  third  book  in  1588. 

1  Dr.  Payen  published  between  1846  and  1870  a  series  of  mono- 
graphs on  Montaigne.  He  bequeathed  to  the  Bibliotheque  Na- 
tionale  more  than  1500  works  relating  to  his  favourite  author. 


MONTAIGNE  5 

a  few  questions  which  have  not  yet  been  solved,  it 
seems  as  though  the  history  of  his  soul  should  be 
easy  to  write.  Of  a  man  who  described  himself  with 
so  much  complacency,  who  said,  "I  dare  not  only 
to  speak  of  myself,  but  to  speak  only  of  myself," 
how  is  it  possible  that  critics  have  not  yet  succeeded 
in  drawing  a  portrait  which  may  be  accepted  as 
final?  How  can  they  be  so  utterly  at  variance  in 
their  judgments  of  him?  According  to  some,  Mon- 
taigne is  a  sceptic,  an  Epicurean,  a  selfish  egotist, 
an  idler;  according  to  others,  he  is  a  rationalist, 
a  Stoic,  a  man  of  a  large  heart,  and  a  lover  of  work. 
Whom  shall  we  believe?  All  of  these  critics  per- 
haps ;  for  in  his  ever  fluctuating  thoughts  and  tastes, 
Montaigne  was  at  once  each  and  every  one  of  these. 
He  is  an  ever  changing  Proteus,  of  whom  it  might 
be  said,  as  Fenelon  did  of  Alcibiades,  that  "he 
assumes  the  most  contrary  forms."  Did  not  his 
friend  La  Boetie  say  to  him:  "You  are  an  Alci- 
biades"? Was  not  Montaigne  thinking  of  his 
own  character  when  he  declared  that  "the  most 
beautiful  souls  are  those  which  show  most  variety 
and  flexibility"?  He  escapes  every  attempt  at 
classification.  He  is  not  the  man  of  one  exclusive 
form;  no  one  system  holds  him  in  bondage.  He 
unites  in  his  rich  nature  the  most  opposite  quali- 
ties. And  it  is  precisely  those  ever  recurring  con- 


6  MONTAIGNE 

trasts  of  his  elusive  and  changeful  character  which 
partly  explain  the  contradictions  of  his  numer- 
ous critics. 

It  is  one  of  the  ironies,  and  so  to  speak  a  mockery, 
of  the  history  of  education  in  France,  that  some  of 
the  men  whom  we  appeal  to,  and  with  good  reason, 
for  the  highest  lessons  in  pedagogy,  were  not  them- 
selves educationists  by  profession,  and  did  not  per- 
sonally practise  the  art  of  which  they  laid  down  the 
principles.  Nay!  They  took  no  care  to  bring  up 
their  own  children  and  conscientiously  to  fulfil  their 
paternal  duties.  J.  J.  Rousseau  handed  over  his 
sons  and  daughters  to  the  tender  mercies  of  the 
foundlings'  hospitals.  Montaigne  did  not  show 
himself  an  unnatural  father  to  the  same  degree,  but 
he  is  at  least  to  be  blamed  in  this,  that  he  bore  very 
lightly  the  loss  of  four  of  his  daughters,  who  died  in 
their  infancy:  "They  all  die  at  nurse,  .  .  ."  he 
says. 

What  are  we  to  think  of  a  father  who,  more  of  an 
author  than  of  a  father,  would  rather  have  written 
a  fine  book  than  live  again  in  his  children?  "The 
offspring  of  our  mind  lie  closer  to  our  hearts.  There 
are  few  men  given  to  poetry  who  would  not  be  prouder 
to  be  the  fathers  of  the  sEneid  than  of  the  finest  boy 
in  Rome."  With  a  flippancy  which  is  surely  in 
bad  taste,  Montaigne  affects  not  to  remember  exactly 


MONTAIGNE  7 

how  many  children  he  has  lost.1  "I  lost  two  or 
three  children,  not  without  regret,  but  without 
grieving."  Did  he  at  least  interest  himself  in  the 
education  of  the  daughter  who  remained  to  him? 
No.  "She  has  been  brought  up  by  her  mother/' 
he  says,  "  privately  and  in  retirement.  ...  I 
interfere  in  no  way  with  her  mother's  authority. 
Feminine  rule  has  mysterious  ways  of  its  own,  and 
must  be  left  to  women.  ..." 

If  he  was  too  careless  a  father  to  condescend  to 
interest  himself  in  shaping  the  mind  of  his  only 
daughter,  he  would  seem  to  have  shown  the  same 
indifference  as  a  husband,  and  to  have  kept  his  wife 
rather  far  from  his  thoughts  and  his  heart.  What 
he  especially  required  of  her  was  that  she  should 
have  the  virtues  of  a  good  housekeeper. 

"I  require  of  a  married  woman,  above  all  other 
virtues,  an  understanding  of  domestic  economy.  .  .  . 
The  most  useful  and  honourable  science  and  occupa- 
tion of  the  mother  of  a  family  is  the  science  of 
housekeeping.  It  angers  me  to  see,  in  several 

1  One  is  all  the  more  surprised  at  this  somewhat  flippant  decla- 
ration, as  Montaigne  noted  down  very  exactly  all  family  events 
in  a  copy  of  Beuthers's  Ephemcrides,  which  has  been  found.  We 
gather  from  it  that  his  daughter  L6onor,  the  only  one  who  lived, 
was  born  in  1571;  she  was  his  second  child.  In  1574  and  1577, 
he  makes  notes  of  the  birth  of  a  fourth  and  of  a  fifth  daughter, 
and  in  1583,  of  a  sixth  daughter,  all  of  whom,  like  two  of  those 
who  had  preceded  them,  died  when  scarcely  a  few  months  old. 


8  MONTAIGNE 

homes,  the  husband  return,  dull  and  dejected  through 
the  worries  of  business,  towards  midday,  to  find 
his  wife  still  dressing  her  hair  and  titivating  in  her 
private  apartment." 

Montaigne  admits  that  he  was  not  intended  for 
married  life,  for  what  he  lightly  calls  the  "  vulgar 
pleasures"  of  wedlock.  He  had  married  Franchise 
de  la  Chassaigne  in  1565,  at  the  age  of  thirty- two, 
to  conform  to  custom,  and  to  please  his  parents, 
rather  than  through  natural  inclination.  He  was 
personally  so  little  disposed  to  marry  that  he  writes, 
in  whimsical  mood:  "Of  my  own  free  will,  I  should 
have  got  out  of  marrying  Wisdom  herself,  had  she 
been  anxious  to  have  me !" 

No  doubt  he  will  say  of  marriage  that  it  is  "a  wise 
bargain,"  "one  of  the  finest  of  the  component 
parts  of  society";  but  this  legal  institution  receives 
no  share  of  Montaigne's  heart.  He  lays  down  as 
a  principle  that  love,  true  love,  cannot  exist  between 
husband  and  wife:  "A  good  marriage,  if  there  are 
any  such,  declines  to  keep  company  with  love." 
Thus  we  should  speak  no  more  of  conjugal  love,  but 
at  the  very  most  of  conjugal  friendship.1 

If  Montaigne  offers  nothing  exemplary,  far  from 
it,  as  a  husband  or  as  a  father,  he  was,  on  the  other 

1  He  has  dared  write  without  circumlocution:  "The  great 
Cato  like  ourself  was  tired  of  his  wife." 


MONTAIGNE  9 

hand,  a  model  son,  and  a  hero  in  friendship.  He 
speaks  but  little  of  his  mother,  it  is  true,  although  he 
spent  his  whole  life  beside  her.1  But  he  worshipped 
his  father.2  With  what  pious  veneration  he  speaks 
of  him,  after  losing  him  in  1568!  .  .  .  "The  good 
father  whom  God  gave  me,  who  got  nothing  from 
me  except  gratitude  for  his  kindness,  but  that, 
truly,  of  the  liveliest.  ..."  Montaigne's  filial 
piety  manifests  itself  in  acts  of  touching  delicacy. 
He  nearly  always  dressed  in  black  and  in  white,  in 
memory  of  his  father's  ways.  He  liked  to  use,  to 
cover  himself  with  his  father's  old  cloak,  because  it 
seemed  to  him  that  he  thus  "wrapped  himself  up 
in  him."  But  he  was  especially  anxious  to  continue 
his  father's  traditions,  to  treasure  his  moral  inheri- 
tance, to  obey  him  still,  although  he  was  dead: 
"It  is  my  proud  boast  that  my  father's  will  is  still 
alive  and  active  within  me." 

But  it  was  especially  in  his  affection  for  Etienne 
de  la  Boetie,  the  author  of  the  famous  pamphlet, 
On  Voluntary  Servitude,  that  Montaigne  showed 
of  what  warmth  of  feeling  his  heart  was  capable. 

1  Montaigne's    mother,    Antoinette    de    Louppes,    of    Spanish, 
and  probably  of  Jewish  extraction,  survived  her  son,   and  did 
not  die  until  ten  years  after  him,  on  the  4th  of  April,  1601. 

2  Montaigne's   father,    originally   a   tradesman,   had   been   en- 
nobled, and  had  given  up  commerce  for  a  military  career.     He 
followed  Francis  I  into  Italy.     He  was  successively  jurat,  or  magis- 
trate, provost,  and  mayor  of  Bordeaux. 


10  MONTAIGNE 

Read  once  again  the  admirable  letter  which  he  wrote 
to  his  father  on  the  death  of  his  friend,  and  also  that 
divine  chapter  in  the  Essays  which  he  has  devoted 
to  Friendship.  Never  has  any  one  spoken  in  such 
moving  terms  of  the  love  which  may  unite  two 
souls,  so  entirely  that  "they  obliterate  and  can  no 
longer  find  the  seam  which  joined  them."  Never 
did  any  love  song,  in  its  most  ardent  effusions,  equal 
this  hymn  to  Friendship.  "If  I  should  be  urged 
to  tell  why  I  loved  him,  I  feel  that  my  only  answer 
can  be :  'Because  it  was  he,  because  he  was  myself.' ' 
Never  did  human  souls  mingle  and  blend  in  a  more 
intimate  or  a  closer  embrace.  It  was  a  universal 
fusion  and  "commixture,  which  having  seized  all 
my  will,  induced  the  same  to  plunge  and  lose  itself 
in  his;  which  likewise  having  seized  all  his  will, 
brought  it  to  lose  and  plunge  itself  in  mine,  with  a 
mutual  greediness  and  with  a  like  concurrence.  ..." 
A  La  Rochefoucauld  would  perhaps  say  that  self- 
esteem,  mutual  admiration,  the  personal  satisfac- 
tion of  finding  one's  self  appreciated  and  understood, 
played  their  part  in  this  burning  and  passionate 
friendship.  What  does  it  matter,  if  from  this  blend 
of  inferior  motives  there  arises,  in  all  its  purity,  the 
flame  of  a  sincere  affection,  ready  for  any  self- 
sacrifice?  When  La  Boetie  was  first  struck  down 
by  the  illness  which  was  to  carry  him  off  at  the  age 


MONTAIGNE  11 

of  thirty-three,  —  the  age  at  which  Pascal  died,  — 
he  gave  his  friend  to  understand  that  his  disease 
might  be  infectious,  and  advised  him  therefore  to 
keep  away,  and  to  come  and  see  him  only  occasion- 
ally, for  a  few  short  moments.  .  .  .  How  did  Mon- 
taigne act?  "From  that  hour,"  he  says,  "I  never 
left  him.  .  .  ."  1 

Montaigne's  friendship  for  La  Boetie  was  the  great 
passion  of  his  life.  It  was  "a  whole-hearted  and 
perfect"  friendship,  "one  and  indivisible,"  each  one 
giving  himself  up  so  entirely  to  his  friend  that 
"there  remained  nothing  to  him  to  bestow  else- 
where"; an  exclusive  friendship  which  caused  Mon- 
taigne to  turn  with  loathing  from  all  other  "vulgar 
and  common  friendships";  it  was  like  a  first  love, 
when,  the  soul  having  surrendered  itself  entirely, 
the  fountain  springs  of  the  heart  seem  to  have 
dried  up  for  life.  Montaigne,  to  be  sure,  was  ac- 
quainted with  other  feelings  than  that  of  friendship. 
In  somewhat  free  and  crude  terms  he  makes  us  the 

1  La  Boetie  died  on  the  18th  of  August,  1563,  of  dysentery.  Born 
at  Sarlat  in  1530,  he  was  three  years  older  than  Montaigne.  Ap- 
pointed Councillor  at  the  Parliament  of  Bordeaux  in  1552,  he  had 
Montaigne  for  a  colleague  from  1557,  and  it  was  there  that  they 
formed  their  close  friendship,  founded  on  a  perfect  community  of 
feelings.  Nothing  indeed  could  be  further  from  the  truth  than  to 
write :  "  How  could  these  two  friends  think  so  differently  while 
they  loved  each  other  so  closely  ?  "  (Combes,  Study  on  the  political 
ideas  of  Montaigne  and  of  La  Boetie. ) 


12  MONTAIGNE 

confidants  of  the  love  affairs  of  which  he  had  more 
than  one  in  his  youth.  But  "  there  was  no  part  he 
could  play  so  well  as  that  of  a  friend;"  and  he  does 
not  hesitate  to  express  his  preference  for  a  friend, 
"a  rare  and  exquisite  friend,"  over  the  sweetest  of 
sweethearts. 

"  These  two  passions  entered  my  heart  in  full  know- 
ledge of  each  other,  but  were  never  to  be  compared ; 
the  former  —  friendship — ever  pursued  its  proud 
and  lofty  flight,  and  looked  down  disdainfully  on  the 
other,  fluttering  to  and  fro  far  beneath  her.  ..." 

Montaigne  enjoyed  the  intimate  friendship  of  La 
Boetie  for  only  four  years,  but  he  never  forgot  it. 
Eighteen  years  after  his  death,  amidst  all  the  in- 
terests of  his  Italian  journey,  he  wrote  in  his  Journal, 
or  Diary:  "I  fell  to  thinking  so  sadly  of  M.  de  la 
Boetie,  and  dwelt  so  long  on  these  thoughts,  that 
it  did  me  the  greatest  harm."  And  in  the  Es- 
says :  — 

"If  I  compare  my  whole  life  with  the  four  years 
during  which  it  was  granted  to  me  to  enjoy  the 
sweet  company  and  society  of  that  friend,  it  is  naught 
but  smoke;  it  seems  but  a  dark  and  wearisome 
night.  Since  the  day  when  I  lost  him,  I  have  only 
dragged  languidly  along,  and  the  very  pleasures 
that  offer  themselves  to  me,  instead  of  comforting 
me,  make  me  feel  his  loss  twice  as  keenly ;  we  shared 


MONTAIGNE  13 

everything  together,  and  it  seems  to  me  that  I  am 
stealing  his  share.  ..." 

But  it  is  not  only  through  the  sentimental  effu- 
sions of  his  inconsolable  regret  that  Montaigne  has 
given  proof  of  the  faithfulness  of  his  attachment  to 
his  vanished  friend.  If  he  often  complained  of  his 
memory,  which  was  " marvellously  apt  to  fail  him," 
he  claims  —  and  gave  ample  proof  —  that  his  heart 
at  least  could  remember.  And  indeed,  he  never 
ceased  to  give  tokens  of  his  devotion  to  his  friend, 

-an  active  devotion;  he  published  La  Boetie's 
works;  he  took  his  part  against  those  who  in  good 
faith,  after  reading  his  pamphlet  on  Voluntary 
Servitude  —  that  republican  manifesto  of  which 
Villemain  said  that  it  was  "like  an  ancient  manu- 
script found  among  the  ruins  of  Rome,  under  the 
shattered  statue  of  the  youngest  of  the  Gracchi," 

-  might  have  been  tempted  to  look  upon  its  author 
as  a  disturber  of  public  order,  as  a  dangerous  revolu- 
tionist. No;  careful  of  La  Boetie's  memory,  pru- 
dent Montaigne  would  not  allow  it  to  be  admitted 
that  the  brilliant  writer  whom  he  had  loved  so  well 
and  of  whom  he  said  that,  had  he  lived,  "he  would 
have  been  the  greatest  man  of  his  time,"  was  naught 
but  a  rebel  and  a  sedition-monger.  He  never  tires 
of  repeating  that  on  the  contrary  "there  never  was 
a  better  citizen,  one  who  was  more  anxious  for  the 


14  MONTAIGNE 

peace  of  his  country,  or  more  averse  to  the  disturb- 
ances and  novelties  of  his  time."  And  as  it  may 
appear  difficult  to  justify  this  certificate  of  political 
wisdom,  granted  to  a  pamphleteer  who,  with  burn- 
ing eloquence,  pleaded  the  cause  of  liberty  against 
tyranny,  the  cause  of  the  peoples  against  their 
kings,  who  calls  those  who  are  in  office  "devourers 
of  the  people,"  and  religion  "the  body-guard  of 
tyrants,"  Montaigne  endeavours  to  lessen  the  import 
of  La  Boetie's  wrords,  to  produce  extenuating  cir- 
cumstances. According  to  him,  this  pamphlet  is 
a  work  of  early  youth,1  the  declamation  of  a  sixth- 
form  schoolboy,  steeped  in  the  works  of  the  an- 
cients, hardly  eighteen  years  of  age,  or  even  six- 
teen, as  Montaigne  maintains  on  second  thoughts 
in  a  later  edition  of  the  Essays.  It  wras  in  order  not 
to  compromise  by  fresh  publicity  the  memory  of 
his  adopted  brother,  like  "those  who  sought  to 
disturb  and  change  our  political  state,"  and  who 
had  already  printed  his  work  "with  evil  intent," 
that  Montaigne  abstained  from  inserting  in  his 

1  On  Voluntary  Servitude  was  printed  in  1576,  in  the  Memoires 
de  I'Etat  de  France  sous  Charles  IX,  published  by  Simon  Goulart. 
La  Boctie  had  written  it  at  the  age  of  sixteen  or  eighteen,  accord- 
ing to  Montaigne,  i.e.  in  1546  or  1548.  The  latter  date  is  the  more 
probable,  for  the  indignation  which  animates  the  young  writer  may 
then  be  explained  by  the  bloody  repression  which  the  Constable 
Anne  de  Montmorency  exercised  at  Bordeaux  in  1548,  in  the 
king's  name. 


MONTAIGNE  15 

own  book  the  text  of  La  Boetie's  pamphlet,  and  set 
in  its  place  twenty-nine  more  inoffensive  sonnets, 
which  do  no  less  credit  to  La  Boetie's  poetical  talent.1 
A  heart  as  sensitive  to  friendship  as  that  of  Mon- 
taigne cannot  be  taxed  with  coldness.  The  wound 
of  his  shattered  affection  never  ceased  to  bleed. 
Besides,  Montaigne  by  no  means  showed  lack  of 
feeling  in  his  actions  taken  as  a  whole.  He  sought, 
more  than  he  succeeded  in  attaining,  the  state  of 
tranquil  indifference,  the  ataraxy  of  the  philosophers. 
I  am  well  aware  that  his  rule  of  life  was  to  suffer  as 
little  as  possible,  and  to  keep  far  from  him  anything 
that  might  have  afflicted  him  or  disturbed  his  peace 
of  mind.  I  am  aware  that  he,  before  Montesquieu, 
said  that  reading  and  study  drove  away  his  grief: 
"The  company  of  books  takes  the  edge  off  pain," 
-  and  in  short  that,  for  reasons  of  health  as  much 
as  of  wisdom,  he  endeavoured  to  look  on  the  best 
side  of  everything. 

1  On  this  subject  one  may  consult  an  interesting  communication 
made  to  the  A  cademiedes  Sciences  morales  et  politiques  on  the  30th 
of  January,  1904,  by  Dr.  Armaingaud.  According  to  M.  Armain- 
gaud,  it  was  Montaigne  himself,  whom  La  Boetie  had  appointed  heir 
to  his  books,  as  his  "intimate  brother  and  close  friend,"  who  com- 
municated to  some  Protestant  polemical  writers  the  text  of  the 
pamphlet  on  Voluntary  Servitude,  which  they  were  the  first  to 
publish.  M.  Armaingaud  even  believes  that  Montaigne  added  with 
his  own  hand  several  passages  to  the  original  text.  There  is  much 
that  is  obscure  in  Montaigne's  complicated  nature. 


16  MONTAIGNE 

But  in  spite  of  all  his  efforts,  his  soul  was  filled 
with  genuine  and  tender  kindness.  He  was  almost 
inclined  to  reproach  himself  with  what  he  called 
"his  extraordinary  weakness  for  pity."  -"I  sym- 
pathize keenly  with  the  afflictions  of  others.  .  .  . 
The  sight  of  the  anguish  of  another  fills  me  with 
distinct  anguish."  -He  even  owns  to  being  some- 
what oversensitive,  since,  he  says,  he  could  not  see 
a  chicken  slaughtered,  without  a  feeling  of  pain. 
He  shows  love  even  to  animals,  can  refuse  nothing 
to  his  favourite  dog,  and  although  a  keen  huntsman, 
"he  can  hardly  bear  to  hear  a  hare  cry  under  the 
teeth  of  his  dogs."  The  smallest  trifle  would  put 
him  about.  "If  my  horse  has  been  badly  bridled,  or 
the  loose  end  of  a  stirrup-leather  beats  against  my 
legs,  I  am  out  of  sorts  for  the  whole  day."  This 
sage  was  afflicted  with  nerves;  the  least  buzzing 
of  a  fly  was  martyrdom  to  him.  And,  what  is  more 
interesting  still,  he  grieved  over  "the  indigence  and 
oppression  of  the  poor  people."  There  is  no  doubt 
that  the  grievous  spectacle  of  the  civil  wars  of  his 
time  caused  him  suffering;  it  went  to  his  heart  to 
see  his  country  rent  asunder.  If,  in  1570,  eighteen 
months  before  the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew, 
he  withdrew,  at  the  age  of  thirty-seven,  within  his 
castle,  if  he  shut  himself  up  in  his  ivory  tower, 
it  was  because  he  was  sick  of  his  century,  a  "spoilt 


MONTAIGNE  17 

century"  in  which  " lying  was  rampant,"  in  which 
the  different  factions  vied  with  each  other  in  deceit 
and  cruelty;  it  was  because  he  could  not  get  used 
to  so  savage  an  age.  He  stood  aloof,  that  he  might 
no  longer  view  at  such  close  quarters  the  misery 
of  his  country,  and  it  is  not  without  reason  that 
some  one  has  said  that  his  retreat  reminds  us  of  that 
of  Alceste,  fleeing  from  the  world  and  from  Celimene 
because  he  loved  them  too  well. 

Montaigne's  detractors  have  not  spared  him  any 
more  in  his  public  than  in  his  private  life.  They 
make  him  out  to  have  been  indifferent  to  the  affairs 
of  his  country  and  careless  of  his  duties  as  a  citizen. 
Here,  again,  there  is  a  legend  to  be  exploded.  He 
does  not,  indeed,  seem  to  have  been  born  for  action. 
He  was  too  fond  of  peaceful  rest,  and  of  ease,  to 
have  a  taste  for  active  life,  with  all  the  hardships 
which  it  involves.  And  yet  he  seems  to  have  loved 
soldiering,  "the  noblest  of  professions."  This  taste 
manifests  itself  in  the  choice  which  he  makes  of  his 
three  greatest  men:  a  poet,  Homer,  and  two  mili- 
tary leaders,  Alexander  the  Great,  whom  he  ranks 
with  either  Caesar,  or  Epaminondas.1  If  he  did  not 
seek  after  "high  fortunes  and  commands,"  if  he 
avoided  "scrambling  to  rise  above  the  position  in 

1  Montaigne  had  seen  active  service  on  several  occasions  in  the 
ranks  of  the  army  of  the  king  against  the  Huguenot  troops. 


18  MONTAIGNE 

which  God  placed  him  at  his  birth/'  it  was;  he 
admits,  because  "he  was  overfond  of  his  ease.'7 
Not,  indeed,  that  he  despised  honours.  He  was  proud 
of  having  been  made  a  knight  of  the  order  of  Saint- 
Michael  by  King  Charles  IX,  in  1571 ;  prouder  still 
perhaps  of  having  been  appointed  by  the  future 
Henry  IV,  in  1577,  gentleman  of  the  chamber  to 
the  king  of  Navarre.  Though  he  does  not  confess 
to  it  in  the  Essays,  we  know  from  his  Diary  of  Travel 1 
that  during  his  stay  in  Rome  he  took  every  step  to 
obtain  the  title  of  Roman  citizen,  which  he  bore 
with  great  pride.  "I  spared  no  effort  to  obtain 
the  letters  of  Roman  citizenship."  He  appreciated 
purely  honorary  dignities,  what  one  might  call 
platonic  honours,  but  he  preferred  to  waive  aside  with 
a  disdainful  hand,  lest  his  nonchalant  day-dreams 
should  be  disturbed,  those  offices  which  involved 
duties,  hard  work,  and  heavy  responsibilities.  He 
resigned  in  1570,  at  the  earliest  possible  moment, 
his  seat  in  the  Parliament  of  Bordeaux.  And  if  he 
was  elected  mayor  of  that  town  in  1581,  this  mandate 

1  Montaigne's  journey  lasted  nearly  a  year  and  a  half,  from 
the  22d  of  June,  1580,  to  the  30th  of  November,  15S1.  The  Ms.  of 
his  Diary  was  found,  one  hundred  and  eighty  years  after  his  death, 
in  an  old  strong-box,  by  Canon  Prunis,  who  was  on  a  visit  at  Mon- 
taigne's castle.  Montaigne's  heirs  may  well  be  taxed  with  neglect 
for  forgetting  among  the  dust  of  the  attics  so  priceless  a  manu- 
script. 


MONTAIGNE  19 

was  quite  unsolicited,  since  the  vote  of  his  fellow- 
citizens  brought  him  back  from  Italy,  where  he  had 
been  travelling  for  a  year. 

Though  Montaigne  confesses  that  he  took  only  a 
"languid  interest"  in  public  affairs,  we  must  not 
conclude  that  he  proved  inferior  to  his  task  when 
called  upon  to  act  by  circumstances.  The  mayor 
of  Bordeaux  was  wanting  neither  in  abnegation  nor 
in  vigilance.  Read  the  letters  which  he  addressed  to 
Marshal  de  Matignon,  his  Majesty's  lieutenant-gen- 
eral in  Guyenne ;  they  show  with  what  active  solici- 
tude he  watched  over  the  interests  which  were  en- 
trusted to  him.  Amidst  the  turmoil  of  civil  war, 
face  to  face  with  perpetual  threats  of  attack  and 
invasion,  he  has  an  eye  for  everything;  he  inspects 
the  defensive  works,  he  remains  on  foot  and  on  the 
alert  at  night,  although  "nothing  is  stirring,"  in 
order  to  be  ready  for  any  eventualit}r.  "I  spent 
every  night  under  arms  in  the  town,  or  else  outside 
the  town  at  the  harbour."  It  is  sufficient  proof  that 
he  showed  himself  worthy  of  the  confidence  of  his 
fellow-citizens,  that,  contrary  to  custom,  he  was  re- 
elected  mayor  for  two  years  in  1583.  He  reminds 
us,  not  without  some  show  of  vanity,  that  "this 
had  only  occurred  twice  before."  His  "languid 
nature"  had  evidently  not  prevented  him  from 
worthily  fulfilling  his  trust. 


20  MONTAIGNE 

"I  wish  these  people  well  with  all  my  heart," 
he  said,  "and  certainly,  if  occasion  had  arisen,  I 
should  have  spared  nothing  in  their  service." 

But  the  occasion  did  arise,  one  will  say — the 
plague  which  visited  Bordeaux  in  1585;  and  Mon- 
taigne is  supposed  to  have  then  failed  in  his  duty 
by  deserting  his  post  and  faint-heartedly  protect- 
ing his  life  from  the  danger  of  contagion.  Let  us 
reestablish  the  facts,  and  note,  first  of  all,  that  Mon- 
taigne \vas  absent  from  Bordeaux  when  the  scourge 
fastened  on  the  town.  Must  we  then  find  fault  with 
him  for  not  returning  to  it?  But  wherein  could 
his  presence  have  benefited  the  unfortunate  people 
of  Bordeaux,  during  a  disastrous  epidemic  which, 
according  to  contemporaries,  in  six  months  laid 
more  than  14,000  victims  in  their  graves  ?  *  On 
the  30th  of  July,  1585,  Montaigne  wrote  from  Li- 
bourne  to  the  magistrates  of  Bordeaux :  - 

"I  shall  spare  neither  my  life,  nor  aught  else, 
in  your  service,  and  leave  it  to  you  to  decide  whether 
that  which  I  can  render  you  through  my  presence, 
at  the  coming  elections,  is  worth  my  venturing  into 
the  town,  in  its  present  evil  plight." 

So  he  placed  himself  at  the  disposal  of  those  under 

1  This  is  an  enormous  number,  and  must  surely  be  exaggerated, 
since  the  whole  population  of  Bordeaux,  at  that  time,  hardly 
exceeded  40,000  inhabitants. 


MONTAIGNE  21 

his  charge,  who  did  not  recall  him,  as  they  considered 
they  had  no  need  for  him.  Let  us  add  that  the 
plague  had  appeared  even  in  Montaigne's  castle, 
that  he  had  to  flee,  and  that  for  several  months  he 
wandered  from  place  to  place,  with  all  his  family, 
to  escape  the  epidemic. 

"I  went  in  painful  quest  of  a  retreat  for  my  family, 
—  a  wandering  family,  feared  alike  by  their  friends 
and  by  each  other,  objects  of  horror  wherever  they 
sought  to  settle  down;  obliged  to  change  their 
abode  if  only  one  of  the  band  complained  of  a  pain 
in  his  finger.  .  .  .  For  six  dreary  months  I  acted 
as  guide  to  this  caravan.  .  .  ." 

There  are  therefore  several  points  to  urge  in  Mon- 
taigne's favour,  to  justify  him  for  apparently  shirking 
his  civic  duties.  The  truth  is  that  he  did  not  think 
himself  obliged  to  run  uselessly  after  danger,  without 
its  profiting  any  one :  "  I  shall  follow  the  right-minded 
party  up  to  the  stake,  but  stop  short  of  it,  if  I  can." 
-"Let  Montaigne  be  involved  in  the  public  ruin, 
if  need  be;  if  there  be  no  need,  I  shall  be  grateful 
to  fortune  if  he  escapes."  Prudence  is  not  cowardice, 
and  to  make  free  to  blame  Montaigne  in  this  cir- 
cumstance would  be  to  show  one's  self  unduly  exact- 
ing, unless  a  man  is  worthy  of  the  name  only  on 
condition  that  he  has  a  taste  for  useless  self-sacrifice 
and  unseasonable  heroism. 


22  MONTAIGNE 

If  Montaigne  kept  aloof  as  much  as  he  could 
from  public  offices,  "game  he  had  no  liking  for,"  as 
he  used  to  say  in  his  hunting  language,  he  was  never 
indifferent,  however,  to  the  events  of  his  time  and 
to  the  fortunes  of  France.1  He  witnessed  as  a  spec- 
tator, without  taking  any  part  in  them,  the  trage- 
dies which  were  enacted  around  him,  but  he  was 
an  attentive  and  sad  spectator,  sometimes  bitter 
and  full  of  anger  in  his  judgments.  " There  is  so 
much  corruption  in  the  affairs  of  my  time  that  I 
could  not  mingle  in  them."  And  he  buried  him- 
self anew,  not  without  some  impatience,  in  the 
reading  of  his  favourite  authors;  he  took  refuge 
in  the  wisdom  of  the  ancients,  to  turn  aside  and 
divert  his  mind  from  present  follies,  to  forget, 
or  try  to  forget,  a  time  when  "  evil-doing  was  so 
common."  -  "This  century  is  so  depraved  that 
whoever  is  guilty  only  of  parricide  and  sacrilege  is 
looked  upon  as  a  man  righteous  and  honourable." 
Yet  his  anxious  and  inquisitive  mind  would  not  allow 
him  to  remain  long  absorbed  in  studious  medita- 
tion. From  within  his  library,  he  followed  the  course 
of  events.  Situated  by  his  place  of  residence  "at 
the  very  centre  of  disturbance  of  the  civil  wars  of 

1  In  1558  Montaigne  was  at  the  siege  of  Thionville.  In  1559 
he  followed  Francis  II  to  Bar-le-Duc.  In  1588  he  was  present 
at  the  States  of  Blois,  where  the  Due  de  Guise  was  murdered. 


MONTAIGNE  23 

France, "  —his  castle  was  ransacked  more  than  once 
by  bands  of  plunderers,  —  ahe  was  all  the  more  in- 
clined to  turn  his  thoughts  to  the  affairs  of  the 
State  and  of  the  universe  without,  when  he  was 
alone,"  when  he  had  leisure  for  reflection.  He  had 
tears  to  shed  for  the  unfortunate  Mary  Stuart,  "the 
fairest  queen  in  the  world,  widow  of  the  greatest 
king  in  Christendom.  .  .  .  She  has  just  died  by  the 
hand  of  the  executioner;  an  infamous  and  barbar- 
ous piece  of  cruelty!" 

What  was  his  attitude  amidst  the  religious  or 
political  factions  which  were  rending  France  ?  That 
of  a  faithful  citizen,  or  at  least  of  a  faithful  subject, 
whose  loyalty  remained  unshaken  under  five  suc- 
cessive kings,  Henry  II,  Francis  II,  Charles  IX, 
Henry  III,  and  Henry  IV.  "I  shall  spare  neither 
my  care,  nor,  if  need  be,  my  life,  to  uphold  the 
king's  authority  in  everything."  His  attitude  was 
also  that  of  a  philosopher  of  independent  mind,  who 
judges  impartially,  and  from  a  high  standpoint, 
both  men  and  things,  and  who  never  abdicates  the 
rights  of  his  conscience;  he  remains  a  stranger  to 
the  violent  passions,  to  the  furious  hatred,  of  the 
various  parties,  keeps  cool,  and  bears  himself  calmly 
and  judiciously  through  this  period  of  universal 
folly. 

Montaigne  was  never  a  courtier,  although  he  lived, 


24  MONTAIGNE 

now  and  again,  " amidst  the  agitation  of  court." 
He  did  not  adapt  himself  easily  to  the  ways  of 
princely  companies.  He  loathed  ceremony.  He 
disliked  to  "hang  about,"  to  parley  with  some 
' '  wretched  unknown  usher. ; '  Free  and  independent, 
too  unbending  to  lend  himself  to  the  whims  of 
princes,  it  was  not  in  him  to  approve  of  all  the  acts 
of  the  monarch,  "in  troublous  and  distempered 
times,  when  the  public  weal  is  best  served  by  treason, 
falsehood,  and  massacre."  He  would  willingly 
have  appropriated  La  Boetie's  proud  maxim, 
"Let  us  obey  our  parents,  own  allegiance  to  Reason, 
live  in  bondage  to  no  one."  He  said  himself:  "I 
will  be  a  slave  only  to  Reason;"  and  also  to  Law. 
"The  laws  have  relieved  me  of  great  distress;  they 
have  traced  a  rule  of  conduct  for  me  and  given  me 
a  master." 

And  however  great  his  loyalty,  when  he  speaks 
in  all  freedom,  he  has  harsh  wrords  for  kings,  who 
are  after  all  only  men  such  as  others  are,  "common 
folk,"  and  even  "adventurers,  less  than  the  least 
of  their  subjects,  from  whom  they  differ,  so  to  speak, 
only  by  their  hose."  He  anticipated  Pascal  in 
saying,  "It  is  not  my  reason  which  bends  and 
yields  before  the  great:  it  is  my  knees." 

Montaigne,  of  course,  knew  that  it  is  the  duty  of 
a  citizen  not  to  remain  neutral  in  questions  of 


MONTAIGNE  25 

national  importance:  "It  would  be  treason,  so  to 
speak,  not  to  take  sides.  ...  To  remain  uncer- 
tain, to  'sit  on  the  fence'  with  regard  to  the  diffi- 
culties of  one's  own  country,  appears  to  me  neither 
seemly  nor  worthy."  But  he  did  not  always  con- 
form strictly  to  this  rule  of  conduct.  He  was  too 
independent  to  enroll  himself  absolutely  under  one 
party.  He  discerned  with  rare  insight  the  qualities 
and  faults,  the  virtues  and  vices,  of  the  men  who 
contended  for  power.  He  could  appreciate  the 
qualities  of  the  Dukes  of  Guise,  for  whom  he  had 
conducted  secret  negotiations  at  the  States  of  Blois, 
in  1588;  he  even  carried  to  some  excess  his  admira- 
tion for  Cardinal  de  Lorraine,  "that  much  begrimed 
soul,"  as  Brantome  said,  whom  Montaigne  looked 
upon  as  "necessary  for  the  public  weal."  But 
on  the  other  hand,  he  was  loud  in  his  praise  of 
Michel  de  1'Hopital;  he  visited  him,  in  1571,  in 
his  place  of  retreat  at  Vignay,  and  said  to  him, 
"I  wish  to  do  homage  and  show  reverence  to  the 
peculiar  qualities  which  are  in  you."  He  was  in 
constant  relation  with  those  in  authority  at  his 
time,  and  was  admitted  into  their  confidence.  He 
never  said  to  the  one  "what  he  could  not  have  said 
to  the  other,"  for  "there  is  nothing  to  prevent  one 
from  acting  loyally  between  men  who  are  enemies." 
What  high  lessons  in  moderation  we  receive  from 


26  MONTAIGNE 

this  philosopher,  lost  amidst  a  world  of  fanatics 
and  sectarians !  He  looked  down  upon  the  stream 
of  intrigue  and  of  hatred  with  eyes  "less  blinded 
with  passion"  than  those  of  his  contemporaries. 
"I  am  animated  with  passions  neither  of  hatred  nor 
of  love  toward  the  great ;  my  will  is  fettered  neither 
through  personal  injuries  nor  through  personal 
obligations."  Let  us  profit  by  his  wise  advice, 
which  applies  equally  to  all  times.  Montaigne 
would  not  allow  a  man  to  be  looked  upon  as  a  traitor 
or  a  turncoat,  because  he  took  the  liberty  of  criti- 
cising certain  acts  of  his  friends  or  of  approving 
certain  ideas  of  his  adversaries.  He  would  have 
none  of  that  passive  obedience  which  enrolls  all 
consciences  under  one  flag,  and  which  forbids  any 
independence  of  opinion. 

"I  have  no  words  strong  enough  to  condemn 
this  vicious  way  of  thinking !  —  He  belongs  to  the 
'Ligue,'  for  he  admires  the  urbanity  of  M.  de  Guise  ! 
-  He  is  amazed  at  the  activity  of  the  king  of 
Navarre ;  he  is  a  Huguenot !  —  He  finds  something 
to  criticise  in  the  king's  manner  of  life ;  he  is  preach- 
ing sedition!" 

Montaigne  shared  the  fate  suffered  by  impartial 
minds  at  all  times:  he  incurred  the  disfavour  of 
every  party.  "For  the  Ghibelline  I  was  a  Guelph, 
for  the  Guelph  a  Ghibelline."  However  careful  he 


MONTAIGNE  27 

was  not  to  compromise  himself,  since,  to  avoid 
blows,  he  would  have  hidden  "even  under  the  skin 
of  a  calf,"  he  did  not  always  succeed.  If  ever  he 
experienced  a  surprise  in  his  life,  it  was  certainly  on 
the  day  in  1588,  when  he  saw  himself  arrested  and 
incarcerated  for  a  few  hours  in  the  Bastille  by  the 
partisans  of  the  Duke  of  Guise.1 

Montaigne  was  among  those  who  "were  amazed 
at  the  activity  of  the  king  of  Navarre."  At  the 
time  of  his  municipal  administration,  on  the  19th 
of  December,  1584,  he  received  him,  not  without 
pomp,  with  all  his  court,  in  his  castle  in  Perigord. 
He  did  not  await  the  king's  conversion  to  wish  and 
hope  for  his  triumph.  In  1590  he  wrote  to  him: 
"Even  when  I  had  to  confess  it  to  my  priest,  I  was 
ever  with  you  in  your  successes;  now  I  am  whole- 
heartedly on  your  side." 

*/  «/ 

But,  whatever  his  respect  for  the  personality  of 
kings,  Montaigne  was  never  slow  to  speak  freely 
to  them  and  to  give  them  advice.  In  what  noble 
language,  for  instance,  did  he  address  Henry  IV ! 
With  what  loftiness  of  political  views  he  encouraged 
him  to  clemency,  reminding  him  that  with  regard 
to  the  affections  of  a  people,  "  it  never  rains  but  it 
pours,"  and  that  if  only  once  the  tide  of  popular 
good-will  should  set  in  his  favour,  its  own  impetus 

1  He  was  immediately  released  by  order  of  Catharine  of  Medici. 


28  MONTAIGNE 

would  carry  it  on  irresistibly."  With  regard  to 
those  who  had  been  rebellious  and  disaffected,  he 
asked  that  the  victor,  even  in  the  first  flush  of  vic- 
tory, should  treat  them  "with  greater  kindness  than 
their  protectors  themselves  had  done."  And  he 
concluded  this  sketch  of  the  education  of  a  prince, 
by  wishing  that  his  Majesty  " might  be  rather  cher- 
ished than  feared  of  his  people." 

Montaigne  has  the  poorest  opinion  of  human 
nature.  If  he  urges  us  to  study  and  " probe"  our- 
selves, it  is  partly  that  we  may  recognize  "of  what 
weak  and  tottering  pieces  our  whole  fabric  is  built 
up."  "It  appears  to  me,"  he  dares  to  say,  "that 
we  can  never  be  despised  according  to  our  deserts." 

"Of  all  the  opinions  which  the  ancients  had  of 
man  in  general,  I  am  most  inclined  to  adopt  those 
which  make  us  most  contemptible,  vile,  and  in- 
significant." 

He  sees  in  man  much  malice  and  stupidity,  and 
even  more  stupidity  than  malice.  We  seem  to  be 
listening  to  Schopenhauer  or  Nietzsche.  And  if  he 
includes  the  whole  of  humanity  in  a  universal  con- 
tempt, he  particularly  dislikes  that  of  his  own  time. 
Abhorring  falsehood  as  he  does,  it  disgusts  him  to 
see  that  "feint  and  dissembling,"  vices  for  which 
he  has  a  "deadly  hatred,"  have  become  "the  most 
notable  qualities  of  a  depraved  century."  Rous- 


MONTAIGNE  29 

seau  will  oppose  the  virtues  of  man  in  the  state  of 
nature  to  the  vices  of  man  in  a  state  of  civilization. 
Montaigne  would  not  gainsay  this  view,  but  he  would 
rather  incline  to  place  the  golden  age  at  Athens 
or  at  Rome,  with  the  ancients,  whom  he  thinks 
superior  to  modern  men. 

"We  do  not,"  he  says,  "possess  their  vigour  of 
mind.  .  .  .  Our  will  is  as  much  impaired  as  theirs 
ever  was,  but  we  cannot  equal  them,  either  in  the 
refinements  of  pleasure,  or  in  virtue." 

But  Montaigne  belongs  to  his  time  and  shares  all 
its  prejudices  in  his  opinion  of  women.  He  knows 
no  better  yet  than  to  subordinate  the  life  of  woman 
to  that  of  man;  he  looks  upon  woman  as  born  to 
serve.  Let  us  excuse  him;  two  hundred  years 
later,  Rousseau  will  hold  the  same  views.  Mon- 
taigne can  imagine  for  her  no  royalty  but  that  of 
beauty;  her  sovereignty  consists  in  being  charming 
and  graceful.  "Where  the  ladies  have  a  real  ad- 
vantage is  in  their  beauty."  He  has  indeed  much 
to  say  about  them,  and  in  the  Essay  entitled 
Of  three  Commerces  or  Societies,  i.e.  men,  books,  and 
women,  he  enters  into  long  dissertations  on  feminine 
intercourse.  In  his  travels,  if  he  is  a  keen  observer 
of  all  things,  he  by  no  means  neglects  to  look  at 
women;  in  the  towns  through  which  he  passes,  he 
is  careful  to  note  their  manner  of  dress  and  their 


30  MONTAIGNE 

adornment;  he  distinguishes  between  their  differ- 
ent degrees  of  beauty.  He  expresses  the  opinion, 
for  instance,  that  in  Italy  there  are  not  so  many 
handsome  women  as  in  France,  but  that  there  are 
fewer  ill-favoured  ones.  At  Rome,  he  even  visits 
women  of  doubtful  morals.  Like  Socrates,  he  fre- 
quents Aspasia,  but  he  is  careful  to  reassure  us,  and 
warns  us  that  his  intercourse  with  courtesans  is 
limited  to  "mere  conversation,"  a  precaution  which 
is  perhaps  not  unnecessary,  coming  from  a  man 
who  confessed  to  having  known  "love  in  its  most 
frenzied  forms,"  and  who  needed  to  be  ever  on  his 
guard,  "being  one  of  those  in  whom  the  flesh  is 
weak." 

But  however  sensitive  he  may  have  been  to  the 
attractions  of  the  fair  sex,  Montaigne  nearly  always 
showed  himself  unjust  in  his  appreciation  of  their 
intellectual  capacity,  as  also  of  their  moral  wrorth. 
He  sets  women  apart  in  a  world  of  their  own,  that 
of  their  "own  and  natural  riches" ;  he  will  not  allow 
them  to  participate  in  the  labours  of  men,  and  does 
not  consider  them  fitted  for  mental  work.  Long 
before  Moliere,  he  holds  that  they  are  learned  enough 
"when  they  can  distinguish  between  their  husband's 
shirt  and  his  doublet."  He  likes  to  speak  ill,  not 
only  of  their  intelligence,  but  of  their  character. 
Consider  the  beginning  of  the  chapter  entitled  "Of 


MONTAIGNE  31 

Three  Good  Women."  Does  he  only  know  of  three, 
then,  in  spite  of  his  great  learning?  "They  are  not 
to  be  found  by  the  dozen,"  he  says,  " particularly 
with  regard  to  their  conjugal  duties.  ..." 

He  would  not  even  admit  that  a  woman  was 
capable  of  friendship,  that  feeling  "in  which,"  he 
said,  "I  am  an  expert." 

"There  is  no  example  of  this  sex  having  ever  yet 
attained  to  it.  .  .  .  The  ordinary  endowments  of 
women  are  not  such  as  will  suffice  for  the  close  com- 
munion which  fosters  this  holy  bond;  their  soul 
does  not  appear  to  be  firm  enough  to  stand  the  strain 
of  so  tight  and  so  enduring  a  knot." 

Nor  can  we  refrain  from  smiling  when  we  see  our 
philosopher  call  upon  the  authority  of  the  ancients 
to  corroborate  his  opinion:  "By  common  consent 
of  all  ancient  schools  this  sex  has  been  denied  any 
participation  in  friendship." 

Women,  thus  disgraced  in  Montaigne's  mind,  would 
have  good  cause  to  be  indignant.  But  one  should 
never  quarrel  with  him  for  an  overhasty  word,  for 
some  rather  harsh  judgment  which  he  may  have 
risked.  He  is  apt  to  withdraw,  to  contradict,  what 
he  has  advanced.  In  the  perpetual  fluctuation  of 
his  thought,  there  is  never  anything  definite.  After 
judging  women  so  unfavourably,  he  suddenly  turns 
round,  —  a  familiar  trick  of  his,  —  he  changes  his 


32  MONTAIGNE 

mind,  and  in  other  passages  of  the  Essays,  he  does 
them  full  justice.  It  is  pleasant  to  hear  him  say 
that  "it  is  vain  arrogance  on  the  part  of  men  to 
assume  over  them  some  vague  preeminence  in  cour- 
age and  virtue."  We  might  almost  be  listening 
to  a  latter-day  "feminist"  when  he  declares  that 
"women  are  not  at  all  wrong  to  decline  to  recognize 
the  rules  of  living  which  obtain  in  this  world,  since 
it  is  men  who  framed  them,  and  without  consulting 
women."  This  scoffer  goes  so  far  as  to  say,  "Males 
and  females  are  cast  in  the  same  mould;  there  is 
no  great  difference  between  them,  save  such  as  has 
been  wrought  by  education  and  custom.  ..." 
And  he  insists :  — 

"If  women  attain  less  often  than  men  to  high 
degrees  of  excellence,  it  is  a  wonder  that  this  lack 
of  a  good  education  has  not  a  worse  result.  Is  there 
any  more  difference  between  men  and  them  than 
there  is  among  themselves  according  to  the  education 
which  they  have  received,  according  as  they  have 
been  brought  up  in  town  or  in  the  country,  or  accord- 
ing to  their  nature?  Why,  with  proper  intellectual 
nourishment,  should  it  not  be  possible  to  bridge 
the  interval  which  exists  between  their  understand- 
ing and  that  of  men?" 

So,  to  become  man's  equal,  woman  is  only  await- 
ing better  intellectual  "nourishment,"  a  better 


MONTAIGNE  33 

education;  it  is  to  be  regretted  that  Montaigne, 
who  understood  so  well  the  necessity  of  it,  did  not 
take  the  trouble  to  outline  it. 

If  Montaigne's  good  sense  had  not  been  enough 
to  compel  him  to  this  retractation,  we  may  believe 
that  toward  the  end  of  his  life  the  friendship  of 
Mile,  de  Gournay  would  have  contributed  to  modify 
and  to  soften  the  severity  of  his  judgments  on  woman. 
The  devotedness  of  her  whom  he  called  "his  daugh- 
ter of  alliance,"  x  and  who  was  supremely  proud  and 
happy  of  this  title,  touched  him  to  the  quick.  He 
was  not  without  some  legitimate  vanity,  and  al- 
though he  says  jestingly  of  his  book  that  it  will 
only  serve  "to  keep  some  piece  of  butter  from  melt- 
ing in  the  market-place,"  he  was  not  without  some 
idea  of  the  value  of  the  Essays.  His  vanity  as  a 
writer  was  agreeably  tickled  by  the  ingenuous  ad- 
miration of  a  young  lady  of  twenty,  who  in  her  bom- 
bastic and  somewhat  peculiar  style  said  of  the 
Essays  that  they  were  "the  judicial  throne  of  reasons, 
the  accession  to  manhood  of  the  mind,  the  resur- 
rection of  truth."  At  this  outburst  of  feminine 
sympathy,  Montaigne  was  delighted,  though  rather 
taken  aback.  "That  she,  a  woman,  in  that  century, 
and  so  young,  should  thus  have  understood  and 

'This  is  Florio's  translation  of  "sa  fille  d' alliance."  (Trans- 
lator's note.) 


34  MONTAIGNE 

extolled  him,"  evidently  disturbed  his  disdainful 
estimate  of  feminine  understanding.  "The  great 
vehemence  with  which  she  for  long  loved  me  and 
desired  my  acquaintance/'  -  she  only  entered  into 
relations  with  him  in  1588,  four  years  before  his 
death,1  —  appeared  to  him  as  "an  accident  most 
worthy  of  consideration";  note,  however,  that  he 
says  an  "  accident,"  as  if  he  persisted  in  excluding 
women  from  participation  in  friendship.  He  at 
least  admitted  her  to  his  own,  and  went  so  far  as  to 
say:  "She  is  all  I  have  left  in  this  world.  .  .  .  She 
is  one  of  the  best  parts  of  my  own  being.  ..." 

Montaigne  lived  in  constant  communion  with 
books.  He  was  a  reader  before  aught  else.  His 
library,  fairly  well  stocked  with  about  a  thousand 
volumes,  was  a  fine  one,  he  said,  "among  village 
libraries."  He  never  travelled  without  books,  either 
in  peace  or  in  war.  He  knew  of  no  better  provision 
for  our  journey  through  life.  It  was  in  his  study 
that  he  spent  "most  of  the  days  of  his  life,  and 
most  of  the  hours  of  each  day." 

He  was  not  content  with  reading  much ;  he  could 
appreciate  the  worth  of  what  he  read.  He  may 
be  looked  upon  as  the  creator  of  literary  criticism, 

1  There  was  not  only  correspondence,  but  mutual  visiting, 
between  Montaigne  and  Mile,  dc  Gournay.  He  went  to  see  her 
at  her  castle  in  Picardy,  in  1588,  and  Mile,  de  Gournay  returned 
his  visit  at  Montaigne. 


MONTAIGNE  35 

and  it  would  be  easy  to  compose  an  Art  of  Writing 
by  bringing  together  various  passages  scattered 
through  the  Essays. 

The  perspicacity  of  his  literary  taste  is  rarely  at 
fault.  His  only  blunder,  almost,  was  his  judgment 
on  Rabelais,  when  he  set  down  Gargantua  among 
the  books  that  are  "merely  intended  to  amuse  us," 
like  the  Decameron  of  Boccaccio  and  the  Basia  of 
Johannes  Secundus.  His  erudition  was  most  ex- 
tensive, although  he  always  poses  as  an  ignoramus. 
It  is  true  that  he  knew  nothing  of  Greek,  greatly 
inferior  thereby  to  some  of  his  contemporaries, — to 
Henri  de  Mesmes,  who  could  recite  Homer  from 
one  end  to  the  other,  and  also  to  La  Boetie,  who 
had  translated  into  French  the  (Economics  of  Xeno- 
phon.  But  he  had  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the 
Latin  tongue,  which  he  had  learnt  from  his  birth 
as  another  mother  language:  "I  understand  it 
better  than  French."  In  his  youth  he  had  written 
a  considerable  quantity  of  Latin  verse ;  in  his  man- 
hood even,  when  he  was  strongly  moved,  Latin 
words  were  the  first  to  come  to  his  lips.  He  knew 
Italian,  as  he  showed  by  writing  in  that  language 
part  of  his  Diary  of  Travel.  He  was  acquainted 
with  Spanish,  and  read  assiduously  the  books  pub- 
lished in  Spain,  which  dealt  with  the  discovery  of 
the  New  World. 


36  MONTAIGNE 

Some  writers  claim  to  have  recognized  in  Mon- 
taigne the  predominance  of  the  Latin  genius.  This 
is  not  quite  exact,  since  he  disliked  Cicero,  and  went 
to  Greece  to  find  his  three  greatest  men:  Homer, 
Alexander,  and  Epaminondas.  And  had  he  chosen 
a  fourth,  it  would  perhaps  have  been  Socrates: 
"In  speaking  of  him,"  says  Emerson,  "for  once  his 
cheek  flushes,  and  his  style  rises  to  passion." 

Montaigne  had  a  "special  fondness"  for  poetry. 
At  school,  at  the  age  of  seven  or  eight  already,  he 
read  Ovid  with  transports  of  delight.  He  read  the 
whole  of  Virgil,  then  Terence,  then  Plautus,  without 
a  pause.  He  has  been  reproached  wrongly  with 
a  preference  for  the  literature  of  the  Roman  Deca- 
dence. It  is  true  that  he  esteemed  Lucan,  but  he 
placed  in  the  front  rank,  and  far  above  him,  Virgil, 
Lucretius,  Horace,  and  Catullus,  not  to  mention 
Terence  and  Martial.  He  quotes  Lucretius  of tenest ; 
he  admires  Virgil  most,  especially  in  the  Georgics, 
"the  most  finished  work  in  poetry,"  and  in  the  fifth 
book  of  the  Mneid,  "the  most  perfect  of  all." 

The  historians,  the  philosophers,  and  the  moralists 
were  also  among  his  favourite  authors.  He  took  little 
pleasure  in  reading  the  orators;  and  although  he 
says  of  Cicero  that  "no  man  ever  equalled  his 
eloquence,"  he  thought  his  writings  "tedious";  he 
goes  so  far  as  to  say  that  he  finds  in  them  nothing 


MONTAIGNE  37 

but  "wind."  He  read  Tacitus  over  and  over  with 
delight,  and  "  was  wont  to  give  Caesar  special  praise." 
But  the  books  which  he  kept  ever  at  hand  were, 
before  all  others,  Seneca  and  Plutarch;  Plutarch 
especially,  "our  Plutarch,"  since  he  had  assumed 
a  French  garb  in  the  translation  of  Amyot,  to  whom 
Montaigne  gave  the  palm  over  all  other  French 
writers. 

"We  ignorant  men  might  have  given  ourselves 
up  for  lost,  if  the  translation  of  Plutarch  had  not 
raised  us  from  the  mire." 

Among  other  reasons  why  "Plutarch  is  his  man," 
he  gives  the  following,  to  wit :  that  his  work  is  com- 
posed of  unconnected  pieces;  you  can  "leave  him 
whenever  you  please;  he  does  not  compel  you  to 
long  and  assiduous  labour."  Is  that  not  also  one  of 
the  reasons  to  which  the  Essays  owe  their  success 
and  their  popularity? 

One  of  the  distinctive  features  of  Montaigne's 
character  is  curiosity,  a  curiosity  which  descends  to 
old  wives'  gossip.  He  has  a  fondness  for  anecdotes, 
for  small  details,  far  more,  perhaps,  than  for  general 
ideas.  He  collects  the  tittle-tattle  of  his  immediate 
neighbourhood,  of  Toulouse,  of  Bergerac,  as  well  as 
that  of  the  writers  of  Rome  and  Athens.  In  the 
towns  through  which  he  passes  he  picks  up  the 
stories  and  tales  which  are  current. 


38  MONTAIGNE 

For  those  who  would  know  Montaigne  intimately, 
his  Diary  of  Travel  is  a  document  worth  studying. 
In  the  Essays,  though  he  hates  to  be  artificial,  he 
is  nevertheless  an  author,  composing  his  features 
before  a  mirror.  In  his  notes  of  travel,  hurriedly 
jotted  down  from  day  to  day,  he  shows  himself 
" naked,"  as  he  said,  and  often  in  an  unexpected 
light.  Travelling,  indeed,  with  its  surprises,  and 
the  novelty  of  the  sights  which  it  presents  to  the 
eyes,  gives  rise  to  many  fresh  impressions;  it  vivi- 
fies faculties  which  the  routine  of  ordinary  life  had 
left  inactive.  In  Italy,  Montaigne  discloses  to  us 
how  much  his  soul,  in  spite  of  all  his  protestations, 
was  open  to  new  influences,  and  with  what  ease  it 
adapted  itself  to  foreign  customs.  His  was  an  uni- 
versal soul,  open  to  everything,  ready  for  anything, 
more  receptive  even  than  learned;  a  cosmopolitan 
soul,  so  to  speak,  —  cosmopolitan  even  as  regarded 
the  table,  since  he  regretted  not  having  brought  his 
"chef "  with  him,  in  order  to  have  him  learn  Italian 
cookery. 

Montaigne's  journey  was  no  doubt  a  satisfaction 
afforded  to  his  taste  for  exploration  and  discovery: 
"Our  life  here  below  is  a  quest  after  Truth;  the 
world  is  a  school  for  inquiry."  But  his  journey 
was  undertaken  especially  in  quest  of  health;  it 
was  a  medical  pilgrimage  from  one  hot  spring  to 


MONTAIGNE  39 

another.  Do  not  mention  glory  to  him,  or  wealth 
or  power:  "Let  me  have  health,  by  the  grace  of 
God !"  His  halts  in  Rome  or  Florence,  to  view  the 
masterpieces  of  art,  are  shorter  than  his  sojourn 
at  the  mineral  station  Delia  Villa,  near  Lucca,  to 
try  to  regain  the  physical  strength  which  is  leaving 
him.1  It  is  true  that  with  his  customary  irony  he 
jeers  at  the  pretended  virtues  of  those  miraculous 
waters,  "which  cure  all  diseases" ;  but  he  uses  them, 
nevertheless,  and  even  overdoes  it.  Wherever  there 
is  a  spring,  without  stopping  to  inquire  about  the 
nature  of  its  waters,  he  hastens  to  it,  bathes  and 
drinks ;  he  drinks  immoderately,  frantically,  up  to 
nine  glasses  a  day  at  Plombieres,  seven  glasses  at 
Baden  or  at  Lucca.  .  .  . 

"How  little  industrious  I  am!"  Montaigne  used 
to  say.  Must  we  then  tax  him  with  laziness  ?  Yes, 
if  laziness  consists  in  a  dislike  for  regular  work,  in 
the  avoidance  of  all  painful  effort.  —  Of  the  game 
of  chess  he  used  to  say,  "I  hate  it,  because  it  re- 
quires too  much  effort  for  a  game."  -  No,  if  it  is 
true  that  the  ever  active,  ever  alert  and  inquisitive 
mind  of  a  man  who  loved  travelling  because  he  found 


1  Montaigne  had  also  frequented  the  mineral  springs  of  France, 
Bagneres  de  Bigorre,  Eaux-Chaudes,  Dax,  etc.  Cf.  the  study  by 
Dr.  Constantin  James:  Montaigne,  ses  voyages  aux  eaux  minerales, 
Paris,  1859. 


40  MONTAIGNE 

in  it  a  continual  "exercitation,"  cannot  be  charged 
with  laziness. 

Would  it  be  any  fairer  to  reproach  him  with 
having  been  nothing  but  an  egotist?  Here  again 
we  might  plead  either  for  or  against,  on  the  author- 
ity of  Montaigne's  own  declarations.  His  advocate 
might  quote  for  the  defence  the  passages  in  the 
Essays,  where  he  says  that  he  is  sociable  to  excess 
that  can  enjoy  no  pleasure  unless  he  shares  it  with 
others.  "My  essential  form/'  he  said,  "is  a  ten- 
dency to  communication."  He  loved  conversation 
as  an  exercise  of  the  soul,  apart  from  any  other 
gain  to  be  derived  from  it;  and  in  conversation,  he 
said,  there  should  be  naught  but  kindness,  straight- 
forwardness, cheerfulness,  and  friendship. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  how  many  confessions  of 
his  show  him  solely  concerned  with  his  personal 
happiness,  and  convinced  that  the  first  duty  of  man 
is  to  be  happy! 

"  A  man  should  take  to  wife  none  but  himself.  .  .  . 
The  greatest  thing  in  the  world  is  to  know  how  to 
belong  to  one's  self.  .  .  .  We  should  reserve  a  back- 
shop  for  ourselves,  entirely  our  own,  entirely  free, 
where  we  may  establish  our  true  liberty,  where  we 
may  discourse  and  laugh,  as  if  we  had  neither  wife, 
nor  children,  nor  possessions." 

The  state  that  Pascal  realized  in  his  life  through 


MONTAIGNE  41 

piety,  mysticism,  and  love  of  God,  —  a  state  of  re- 
nunciation of  human  affections  and  of  withdrawal 
within  himself,  —  Montaigne  attained  to  that  state 
by  another  road,  through  love  of  himself.  "The 
ego  is  hateful,"  said  Pascal;  "the  ego  is  our  all," 
Montaigne  would  almost  say.  Starting  from  those 
contradictory  principles,  the  two  moralists  arrive 
at  the  same  practical  conclusion :  a  sort  of  cenobitism 
of  a  religious  type  with  the  one,  of  a  lay  type  with 
the  other. 

Montaigne's  egotism  is  at  bottom  only  a  need  of 
independence,  carried  to  its  extreme  limit.  He 
was  determined  to  belong  to  himself.  He  hated 
being  under  any  obligation,  or  being  bound  in  any 
way.  He  hated  above  all  servitude  or  subjection : — 

"Princes  do  me  enough  good  when  they  do  me 
no  harm;  that  is  all  I  require  of  them." 

He  is  the  enemy  of  any  assiduity,  of  any  constraint : 
"I  have  a  deadly  hatred  of  being  either  bound  or 
subject  to  any  other  than  myself." 

Domestic  affairs,  although  less  important  than 
public  business,  are  not  less  irksome  to  him ;  he  calls 
them  "servile  duties."  He  wishes  his  happiness 
to  depend  on  himself  alone.  He  is  so  anxious  to 
rid  himself  of  all  subjection,  of  all  obligations,  that 
sometimes  he  considered  himself  the  gainer  by  the 
ingratitude  of  those  to  whom  he  had  done  a  service, 


42  MONTAIGNE 

because  it  dispensed  him  from  fresh  efforts  to  renew 
his  good  offices.  While  he  admits  that  we  should 
act  while  we  are  young,  and  give  to  the  world  "our 
more  active  and  flourishing  years/'  he  thinks  we 
should  detach  ourselves  very  soon,  and  early  "take 
leave  of  the  company." 

"We  have  lived  enough  for  others;  let  us  live  for 
ourselves  at  least  during  this  remainder  of  life;  and 
let  us  live  to  seek  our  ease." 

Montaigne  has  another  fault :  he  is  not  without 
vanity.  He  is  proud  of  his  armorial  bearings,  and 
swells  with  importance  when  he  says,  "  My  coat  is 
azure  treflee  or,"  etc. 

He  puts  down  in  his  diary,  with  great  satisfaction, 
the  civilities  shown  to  him,  as  to  a  stranger  of  dis- 
tinction, by  the  magistrates  and  notable  men  of  the 
towns  which  he  visits.  In  the  inns  where  he  takes 
his  quarters,  his  escutcheon  with  his  coat-of-arms 
must  be  affixed  to  the  outer  walls.  He  speaks  with 
vanity  of  his  ancestors,  of  his  castle:  "It  is  my 
birthplace  and  that  of  most  of  my  ancestors,"  and 
he  introduces  them  to  us  as  gentlemen  of  an  old 
stock,  although  they  were  nothing  but  rich  fish- 
mongers, according  to  Scaliger.1 

The  reader  must  not  think,  however,  that  it  was 

1  Scaliger  had  been  a  pupil  at  the  "  College  de  Guyenne  "  a  few 
years  after  Montaigne. 


MONTAIGNE  43 

through  vanity  that  he  spoke  so  much  of  himself. 
It  is  without  any  underlying  pride,  and  at  the  risk 
of  compromising  himself  in  the  opinion  of  his  readers, 
that  he  complacently  gives  us  such  minute  informa- 
tion on  his  most  intimate  habits.  He  disobeys  the 
maxim  of  the  ancients,  "Hide  thy  life."  He  gives 
us  his  physical  portrait,  speaks  of  his  heavy  mus- 
tache, of  his  medium  stature  and  thickset  body, 
adding  that  a  handsome  stature  is  the  only  beauty 
of  men,  and  that  he  could  lay  no  claim  to  it.  But 
it  is  his  moral  self  that  he  outlines.  "What  a  fool- 
ish design  Montaigne  formed,"  says  Pascal,  "to  go 
and  picture  himself!"  We  might  retort,  with  Vol- 
taire, that  it  was  on  the  contrary  "a  charming 
design,"  and  especially  with  Bernardin  de  Saint- 
Pierre,  "When  J.-J.  Rousseau  and  Montaigne  talk 
about  themselves,  I  think  they  are  talking  about 
me."  If  Montaigne  has  met  with  so  much  favour,  it 
is  because  almost  all  men  recognize  themselves  in 
him,  with  their  weaknesses  and  faults.  He  confessed 
to  his  \vith  such  easy  frankness,  that  it  seems  to 
us  that  his  example  is  an  excuse  for  our  own  faults. 
In  any  case  we  cannot  reproach  him  with  showing 
himself  in  too  favourable  a  light,  with  singing  his 
own  praises,  since  he  is  apt  rather  to  jeer  at  himself: 
"I  am  nothing  but  a  goose."  He  tells  us,  to  our 
surprise,  that  he  is  completely  wanting  in  memory; 


44  MONTAIGNE 

his  other  faculties,  he  says,  are  of  the  most  common- 
place type.  In  his  assumption  of  false  modesty, 
he  goes  so  far  as  to  say,  "Everything  is  coarse  in 
me;  there  is  a  lack  of  grace  and  beauty." 

If  we  are  to  believe  him,  he  was  but  a  dull  boy  at 
school,  "both  heavy  and  leaden,  longer  to  learn  a 
lesson,  and  less  interested,  not  only  than  all  his 
brothers,  but  even  than  all  the  children  of  his  prov- 
ince"; and  he  means  these  words  to  apply  both  to 
the  exercises  of  the  body  and  to  those  of  the  mind. 

Montaigne's  moderation  has  often  been  praised, 
and  it  is  certain  that  he  was,  before  aught  else,  a 
believer  in  the  golden  mean.  He  is  in  this  respect 
a  typical  example  of  the  French  spirit,  of  the  old 
French  spirit  at  least,  of  that  exquisite  sense  of 
measure  that  we  are  gradually  losing.  He  is  mod- 
erate even  in  wisdom :  — 

"In  my  old  age,  I  guard  against  temperance,  as 
I  did  formerly  against  pleasure.  Wisdom  may 
be  carried  to  excess,  and  requires  moderation  no 
less  than  folly.  There  may  be  excess  in  virtue,  and 
it  is  no  longer  virtue,  if  any  excess  be  in  it." 

Even  when  he  feels  most  keenly,  he  keeps  himself 
well  in  hand;  he  does  not  give  himself  entirely 
away;  "he  spares  his  will."  He  was  voluptuous, 
it  must  be  admitted,  since  he  said,  "If  I  find 
the  smallest  opportunity  for  pleasure,  I  grab  at 


MONTAIGNE  45 

it";  —  and  again,  "I  who  have  no  other  aim 
but  to  live  and  to  enjoy  life";  —  and  yet  he 
strove  to  avoid  temptation;  he  was  on  his  guard 
against  his  passions.  In  his  youth,  he  would  fight 
against  the  progress  of  any  love  entanglement, 
when  "he  felt  it  taking  too  great  a  hold  on  him." 
lie  did  not  allow  his  feeling  to  burst  into  such  a 
flame  as  would  have  held  him  "at  its  mercy."  He 
curbed  his  will,  as  soon  as  it  fastened  too  lustfully 
on  any  object.  Not  that  he  entered  upon  a  direct 
struggle,  for  effort  was  painful  to  him,  but  he  em- 
ployed stratagem  and  cunning  to  get  the  better 
of  his  new-born  passion,  and  created  diversions  in 
order  to  weaken  the  desire  which  threatened  to 
tyrannize  over  him. 

This  wise  spirit  of  moderation,  which  character- 
izes Montaigne,  does  not,  however,  go  so  far  as  to 
forbid  him  fits  of  anger  and  indignation,  or  strong 
hatred.  Whatever  wisdom  study  and  meditation 
have  instilled  into  him,  his  Gascon  nature  some- 
times regains  the  upper  hand  with  all  its  fierceness. 
He  certainly  shows  little  moderation  when,  before 
Moliere,  and  with  even  more  harshness,  he  showers 
sarcasm  and  invective  upon  medicine  and  doctors, 
"with  their  magistral  fopperies  and  prosopopeyal 
gravity."  -"The  sun  shines  upon  their  successes 
and  the  earth  hides  their  blunders.  .  .  .  They 


46  MONTAIGNE 

killed  off  a  friend  of  mine  who  was  worth  more  than 
the  whole  lot  of  them."  —  He  shows  no  moderation 
when,  with  scathing  irony,  he  attacks  pedantry  and 
false  science;  when  he  calls  philosophy  "a,  clatter 
of  brains."  He  shows  least  moderation  of  all  when, 
allowing  himself  to  be  carried  away,  full  sail,  with  a 
relentless  vehemence  for  which  Pascal  admired  him, 
he  pitilessly  takes  human  reason  to  task  for  its  con- 
tradictions, uses  its  own  weapons  to  crumple  it  up, 
revolts  against  its  pretensions  to  attain  to  certainty, 
and  places  man  uby  special  favour,  on  a  level  with 
beasts." 

If,  in  his  indictment  of  reason,  Montaigne  bases 
himself  on  the  contradictions  of  human  opinions: 
"  There  never  were  in  this  world  two  opinions  alike ; " 
-  he  might  equally  well  have  instanced,  in  support 
of  his  argument,  the  indecisions  of  his  own  mind 
and  of  his  ever  vacillating  thought :  - 

"Distinguo:  on  this  word  I  base  the  wrhole  of  my 
logic.  .  .  .  There  are  just  as  great  disparities  within 
ourselves  as  between  ourselves  and  others.  .  .  . 
Within  myself  will  be  found  every  contradiction: 
I  am  bashful  and  insolent,  chaste  and  licentious, 
talkative  and  silent,  hard-working  and  a  dilettante 
[he  does  not  say  "lazy"],  ingenious  and  dull,  morose 
and  good-natured,  given  to  lying  [when  he  referred, 
for  instance,  to  the  noble  origin  of  his  family]  and 


MONTAIGNE  47 

truthful,  learned  and  ignorant,  open-handed,  stingy 
and  prodigal." 

And  a  few  more  characteristics  might  be  added: 
sceptical  and  credulous,  indifferent  and  passionate, 
stay-at-home  and  fond  of  travelling.  .  .  .  There 
are  all  sorts  of  men  in  Montaigne.  He  experienced 
every  impulse  of  human  nature.  And  what  he  said 
of  other  men  is  at  least  true  of  himself,  "Each  man 
bears  within  himself  every  attribute  of  humanity." 

With  Montaigne  we  must  always  be  on  our  guard, 
and  distrust  even  his  most  categoric  affirmations. 
You  have  recorded  one  of  his  opinions,  for  which 
he  has  stated  the  strongest  grounds.  That,  then, 
is  his  final  verdict,  you  say,  and  you  are  about  to 
congratulate  him  or  to  show  that  he  is  wrong.  Do 
not  be  over-hasty,  for  if  you  turn  the  page,  you  will 
perhaps  find  a  different,  or  even  a  contrary,  con- 
clusion on  the  same  subject,  and  expressed  with  the 
same  apparent  conviction;  you  may  even  think  it 
impossible  that  such  contradictory  ideas  should  have 
"come  from  the  same  shop."  Nothing  is  more  dis- 
concerting than  this  uncertain  course  of  an  ever 
elusive  thought,  at  the  mercy  of  every  wind,  and 
which  never  finds  its  moorings. 

Let  us  consider,  however,  that  the  fluctuating 
indecision  of  Montaigne's  judgments  springs  from 
some  of  the  qualities  of  his  mind:  first,  from  the 


48  MONTAIGNE 

impetuosity  of  his  imagination:  "I  love  to  see 
poetry  skip  and  frolic  on  its  way.  .  .  .  My  own 
style  and  mind  ramble  about  in  a  like  manner;" 
and,  secondly  and  especially,  from  his  penetrating 
acuteness,  his  anxious  curiosity,  which  makes  him 
turn  the  same  subject  over  and  over  in  his  mind, 
in  order  to  see  further  into  it.  Let  superficial  minds 
pride  themselves  on  never  varying!  When  once 
they  have  got  hold  of  a  little  bit  of  the  truth,  they 
stick  to  it,  and  will  no  longer  depart  from  the  shal- 
low opinion  they  have  formed  after  a  rapid  glance  at 
the  object  they  are  studying.  Montaigne,  who  goes 
below  the  surface,  and  right  round  an  idea,  who  looks 
at  every  side  of  a  fact  and  often  returns  to  the  same 
question,  sees  it  in  turn  from  every  point  of  view. 
Montaigne's  contradictions  are  in  the  main  only  the 
consequence  of  the  very  complexity  of  the  questions 
he  sets  himself,  the  reflection  of  a  world  which  is 
naught  but  "variety  and  dissimilarity."  -"I  con- 
tradict myself,  but  I  do  not  contradict  truth." 

It  is  also  possible  that  Montaigne's  contradictions 
are  due  to  the  inconsistency  of  a  character  made  up 
entirely  of  contrasts.  He  blamed  those  who  are 
ever  the  slaves  of  the  same  inclination,  and,  in  his 
expressive  language,  said  that  "he  would  rather 
approve  of  a  soul  built  up  of  several  platforms,  such 
as  might  be  raised  to  any  height  and  taken  to  pieces 


MONTAIGNE  49 

again."  The  suppleness  of  his  mind  verged  on  in- 
coherence. In  one  place,  he  will  say  of  Socrates 
that  he  is  "the  man  most  worthy  to  be  known  and 
given  as  an  example  to  the  world";  in  another  he 
will  extol  Alcibiades,  and  "his  life,  the  richest  that 
one  could  live."  In  the  same  chapter,  he  will  talk, 
like  a  saint,  "of  divine  Provide'nce,  which  allows  its 
Church  to  be  tossed  amid  so  many  storms,  in  order 
to  awaken  pious  souls";  and  a  few  lines  further  on 
he  will  tell  us  at  great  length  his  own  adventures 
with  the  ladies. 

The  inconsistency  of  Montaigne's  character  be- 
trays also  a  certain  levity.  His  imagination  carried 
him  away.  l '  Most  of  us,  in  the  workings  of  our  mind, 
require  lead  rather  than  wings."  -  "A  very  little," 
he  would  say,  "diverts  us  and  leads  us  astray,  be- 
cause we  are  held  down  by  very  little."  He  was 
liable  to  fly  away  at  any  moment  because  he  never 
clung  strongly  to  anything.  We  are  grieved  to  find 
that  even  when  sunk  in  grief  over  the  loss  of  La 
Boe'tie,  he  immediately  sought  a  diversion :  - 

"I  once  suffered  a  great  grief;  to  divert  my 
thoughts,  I  played  at  being  in  love.  And  love 
consoled  me  of  the  pain  that  friendship  had  caused 
me." 

The  Essays  contain  lessons  for  every  age,  as  we 
have  just  seen,  some  of  them  not  altogether  edify- 


50  MONTAIGNE 

ing.  They  contain  excellent  ones  for  old  age.  Now 
it  should  be  noticed  that  Montaigne  thought  himself 
on  the  downward  slope  of  old  age  when  he  was  only 
forty  years  old.  Thenceforward  he  was  only  "half 
a  being, "  as  he  said.  In  1582;  at  the  age  of  fifty, 
while  writing  the  third  book  of  the  Essays,  he 
said,  "I  am  shrivelling  up  and  growing  rancid." 
But  what  a  cheerful  and  smiling  old  man  he  is ! 
How  he  strives  to  maintain,  amidst  the  infirmities 
of  age  and  the  harbingers  of  death,  his  good-humour 
and  his  gayety!  God  keep  him  from  resembling 
those  whose  soul,  as  they  grow  old,  "grows  sour  and 
musty!"  As  his  memories  roam  through  his  long 
years  of  past  happiness,  he  does  not  consume  him- 
self in  vain  regret:  "I  neither  complain  of  the  past, 
nor  fear  the  future."  He  considers  himself  happy 
to  have  journeyed  so  far  through  life:  "I  have  seen 
the  young  shoot  and  the  flowers,  and  the  fruit,  and 
I  now  see  the  withering  of  the  stock."  No  doubt 
the  poor  man,  who,  as  he  says,  is  "on  the  high  road 
to  ruin,"  does  show  some  little  regret  for  the  days 
of  his  youth,  so  green  and  full  of  strength.  Read, 
for  instance,  the  chapter  On  Some  Verses  of  Virgil, 
which  would  be  better  entitled :  The  Art  of  Love, 
or  Confessions  of  a  Don  Juan.1  If  Montaigne  finds 

1  Scaliger  said  that  this  chapter  should  have  for  a  title  Coq-a 
I'dne,  or  Cock  and  Bull  Stories. 


MONTAIGNE  51 

it  somewhat  difficult  to  take  leave  of  the  pleasures 
of  youth,  he  starts  in  quest  of  others,  and  grows 
fond  of  good  cheer:  "I  am  learning  to  appreciate 
good  wine  and  good  sauces."  Better  still,  he  en- 
deavours to  remain  youthful  in  mind;  for  it  is  the 
privilege  of  the  mind  to  "regain  possession  of  itself" 
and  to  rise  above  the  attacks  of  age :  "Let  my  mind 
remain  green,  and  bloom,  if  it  can,  like  mistletoe, 
on  a  dead  tree.  .  .  ."  It  is  true  that  elsewhere 
he  will  confess  sadly  that  old  age  "puts  more  wrin- 
kles on  our  minds  than  on  our  faces." 

He  had  no  fear  of  death,  of  which  he  said,  playing 
on  the  words,  that  it  is  "not  the  end,  but  the  termi- 
nation of  life"; l  and  elsewhere  that  it  is  "the  last 
act  of  the  play."  Even  "amidst  the  dances  and 
games"  of  his  youth,  he  already  thought  of  death. 
One  of  his  admirers,  Justus  Lipsius,  mistook  not 
when  he  wrote  to  Mile,  de  Gournay,  —  begging  her 
to  look  upon  him  thenceforth  "as  her  brother," 
that  their  adoptive  father  "had  no  doubt  greeted 
death  with  that  cheerfulness  which  wras  natural 
to  him."  Indeed,  it  is  very  surprising  that  the  idea 
of  death  should  present  itself  so  often  to  Montaigne's 
mind,  like  a  haunting  obsession.  He  constantly 
returns  to  it,  not  to  tremble,  but  to  "grow  familiar 
with  it."  -"Let  us  have  nothing  so  often  in  our 

1  Non  le  but,  mais  le  bout  de  la  vie. 


52  MONTAIGNE 

minds  as  death."  He  wishes,  he  says,  "to  be  recon- 
ciled to  death,  to  make  friends  with  it."  His  suffer- 
ings help  him  to  prepare  for  it,  to  go  through  what 
we  might  call  the  education  of  death.  He  notes 
down  with  the  greatest  minuteness  what  his  im- 
pressions had  been,  one  day  that  he  had  fainted  after 
a  fall  from  his  horse;  and  he  concludes  from  this 
semi-experience  that  the  passage  from  life  to  death 
is  perhaps  not  so  painful  as  people  imagine. 

"  Perhaps  death  is  not  worth  all  the  trouble  I  take, 
all  the  preparations  I  make,  all  the  assistance  I  call 
up  and  collect  in  order  to  bear  that  ordeal.  I  can 
depart,  when  it  pleases  God,  without  regretting 
anything  in  this  world." 

What  he  hopes  for  is  a  sudden  death:  " Death 
is  all  the  better  for  being  swift."  It  is  then,  he  says 
almost  light-heartedly,  only  a  difficult  quarter  of 
an  hour  to  go  through.  He  would  not  mind  dying 
on  horseback.  If  he  had  lived  in  our  times,  death 
in  a  motor-car  would  have  been  quite  to  his  taste. 
Being  an  epicure,  and  fond  of  his  ease  even  in  death, 
he  would  fain  die  gently,  without  sadness,  far  from 
the  honest  tears  of  relatives,  and  of  the  feigned 
demonstrations  of  grief  of  false  friends. 

How  can  we  wonder  that  Pascal,  a  Christian,  who 
never  contemplates  death  and  its  mystery  without 
quaking,  is  indignant  with  a  philosopher  who  awaits 


MONTAIGNE  53 

it  almost  with  indifference,  and  who  would  "die 
basely,  unresistingly,  like  a  pagan  "  ?  Montaigne's 
feelings  with  regard  to  death  are  " horrible,"  says 
Pascal.1  No,  they  are  those  of  a  man  nobly  resigned 
to  the  common  law,  —  those  of  a  man  who  hopes  to 
die  as  he  lived,  like  a  sage,  master  of  himself;  who 
sees  his  last  moments  drawing  nigh,  not  only  undis- 
turbed, but  without  "care,"  without  anxiety,  and 
who  continues  "the  course  of  his  life  even  unto 
death." 

Where  Pascal  is  right,  is  when  he  observes  that 
amid  Montaigne's  reflections  on  death,  there  is 
hardly  a  thought  given  to  the  hereafter.  With 
regard  to  immortality,  no  doubt,  as  on  all  other 
religious  questions,  the  author  of  the  Essays  pro- 
fesses the  Roman  Catholic  faith.  But  at  heart, 
regarding  that  future  life  which  he  hardly  ever 
mentions,  had  he  any  definite  assurance,  any  settled 
opinion?  The  answer  is  doubtful.  He  quotes, 
without  comment,  La  Beetle's  dying  words:  "I 
am  going,  I  am  certain  of  it,  to  find  God  and  the 
abode  of  the  blessed.  .  .  ."  And  likewise,  in  his 
eulogy  of  Julian  the  Apostate,  "that  man  so  great 
and  so  rare"  -the  censors  of  the  Roman  Inquisi- 
tion took  him  to  task  for  these  words  of  praise,  and 

1  Pascal  was  almost  as  angry  with  him  for  having  expressed 
doubts  regarding  the  certainty  of  geometry. 


54  MONTAIGNE 

invited  him  to  "reclothe"  this  passage,  —  he  notes, 
without  adding  a  word,  the  fact  that  Julian  "had 
a  strong  faith  in  the  eternity  of  souls."  And  again, 
he  will  say  of  those  who  sacrifice  the  care  of  our 
present  existence  to  the  thought  of  their  future 
destiny:  "That  opinion  is  absurd,  which  holds  our 
present  life  in  contempt.  ..."  What  conclusion 
are  we  to  come  to,  but  that  the  immortality  of  the 
soul  was  for  Montaigne  a  problem  to  which  he  affixed 
a  note  of  interrogation,  and  to  which  he  applied  his 
famous  "What  do  I  know ? " ;  that  it  was  at  the  most 
vague  and  uncertain  hope? 

"O  what  a  bold  faculty  is  hope,  which,  in  mortal 
man,  and  in  a  moment,  does  not  shrink  from  usurp- 
ing the  Infinite,  Immensity,  nay,  Eternity  itself !  .  .  ." 

Montaigne's  religion  has  been  the  subject  of  much 
discussion.  Large  volumes,  —  such  as  that  of  Abbe 
de  la  Bouderie,  —  have  been  written  on  his  Chris- 
tian faith.  Others,  readers  of  Chateaubriand,  have 
said  that  the  Essays  might  be  called,  "The  Genius 
of  Paganism."  Whom  are  we  to  listen  to?  What 
is  beyond  doubt  is  that  Montaigne  bears  himself 
outwardly  as  a  perfectly  orthodox  Roman  Catholic. 
He  partakes  of  the  Sacraments;  he  is  devout,  he 
makes  the  sign  of  the  Cross  "whenever  there  is 
occasion";  for  instance,  "when  he  yawns."  At 
Eastertide  he  receives  the  sacrament  at  Loreto,  in 


MONTAIGNE  55 

Italy ; l  but  vainglorious  as  ever,  he  would  have  us 
know  that  he  receives  it  in  a  private  chapel,  "  which 
every  one  may  not  do."  He  repeats  the  Lord's 
Prayer:  a  prayer  "dictated  by  the  very  mouth  of 
God,"  and  indeed  the  only  one  which  he  used.  He 
has  a  priest  called  to  his  death-bed.  And  again 
he  declares  that  he  submits  humbly  to  the  Catholic 
church,  "in  which  he  is  dying  and  into  which  he 
was  born."  He  bows  his  head  before  the  divine 
will. 

"It  is  enough  that  a  Christian  should  believe  that 
all  things  come  from  God,  and  receive  them  in  the 
full  acknowledgment  of  His  divine  and  inscrutable 
wisdom." 

It  was  Man  in  the  state  of  nature  that  the  Jansen- 
ists  anathematized  in  Montaigne.  And  yet  it  often 
happened  that  he  called  upon  divine  grace,  and  upon 
the  assistance  of  God,  to  sustain  him  in  his  human 
weakness.  Pascal  would  have  subscribed  without 
demur  to  this  passage  of  the  Essays :  - 

"Oh!  what  a  vile  and  abject  thing  is  man,  if 
he  do  not  rise  above  humanity !  And  he  will  thus 
rise,  if  God,  by  special  favour,  will  lend  him  his  aid." 

But    neither    those    orthodox    declarations,    nor 

1  At  Loreto,  Montaigne  had  the  following  "ex-voto,"  or  votive 
tablet,  engraved :  Michael  Montanus,  Gallus  Vasco,  eques  regii 
ordinis;  Francisco,  Cassaniana  uxor,  Leonora  Montana  filia  unica. 


56  MONTAIGNE 

those  religious  practices,  are  a  guarantee  that  Faith 
was  in  him.  Montaigne,  Pascal  said,  "acts  as  a 
pagan";  he  also  thought  as  a  pagan.  His  Chris- 
tianity was  all  on  the  surface;  an  outward  submis- 
sion to  the  use  and  wont  of  the  country  of  his  birth. 
I  am  a  Christian,  he  said,  as  I  belong  to  Perigord. 
He  is  a  Roman  Catholic,  rather  than  a  Christian; 
a  philosopher  rather  than  a  Roman  Catholic.  It 
should  be  noted  that  though  he  quotes  much,  he 
rarely  quotes  the  Gospel,  and  never  speaks  of  Christ. 
A  man  can  be  no  great  believer  in  revelation  when 
he  writes :  — 

"  Whatever  we  learn,  it  is  a  mortal  hand  which 
presents  it  to  us,  a  mortal  hand  which  accepts  it.'; 

He  is  fond  of  relating  miraculous  occurrences,  but  he 
observes,  not  without  irony,  that  miracles  are  in  vari- 
ably withheld  from  his  sight;  and  he  expressly  affirms 
that  the  order  and  course  of  Nature  can  be  disturbed 
by  no  intervention.  In  his  relations  with  the  church, 
he  seems  to  adopt  more  or  less  the  same  attitude  as 
he  does  toward  medicine.  He  heaps  upon  doctors 
his  most  stinging  epigrams,  and  yet,  having  reached 
the  end  of  his  diatribe,  he  bows  low  to  them :  "How- 
ever, I  hold  doctors  in  honour.  .  .  .  When  I  am  sick, 
I  call  them  to  me ;  I  pay  them,  like  other  people.  .  .  ." 
Yes;  but  he  adds  that  "his  judgment  must  needs 
be  marvellously  out  of  joint,  if  ever  he  should  be- 


MONTAIGNE  57 

lieve  in  their  power  and  in  the  efficacy  of  their 
drugs." 

It  is  difficult  to  gather  exactly  what  Montaigne 
thought  of  the  Reformation.  In  the  perpetual 
oscillation  of  his  judgment,  at  one  time  he  declares 
that  posterity  will  celebrate  it  for  having  fought 
against  error  and  vice,  for  having  filled  the  world 
with  piety,  humility,  obedience,  and  all  manner  of 
virtues;  and  anon  he  scoffs  at  the  efforts  which  the 
Protestants  are  making  to  spread  the  knowledge 
of  the  Bible  by  means  of  translations:  "A  strange 
people,  who  think  they  have  brought  the  Word  of 
God  within  the  understanding  of  the  masses,  because 
they  have  put  it  into  popular  language!"  It  re- 
mains certain  that  his  attitude  toward  the  religious 
quarrels  of  his  time  was  the  same  as  in  political 
questions:  he  kept  aloof  and  remained  neutral; 
he  did  not  follow  the  example  of  those  among  his 
own  brothers  who  had  been  converted  to  Protes- 
tantism.1 

"Let  those  who  in  these  latter  days  have  so  ear- 
nestly laboured  to  frame  and  establish  unto  us  an 
exercise  of  religion  and  service  of  God,  so  contem- 
plative and  immaterial,  wonder  nothing  at  all  if 

1  Montaigne  was  the  third  child  of  a  large  family,  —  seven  or 
eight  boys  or  girls.  His  two  elder  brothers  were  already  dead 
when  he  was  born. 


58  MONTAIGNE 

some  be  found  who  think  it  would  have  escaped 
and  mouldered  away  between  their  fingers." 

A  man  "of  good  faith,"  but  of  little  faith,  Mon- 
taigne, in  his  inmost  soul,  remained  outside  any 
religious  confession.  The  wisdom  to  which  he  as- 
pires is  a  human  wisdom,  which  should  be  "neither 
produced  nor  disquieted  by  religion."  He  wishes 
to  live  the  human  life,  in  conformity  with  his  natural 
condition.  He  is  the  true  forerunner  of  modern 
freethinkers.  He  has  the  intuition  of  the  advent 
of  a  lay  and  rational  system  of  ethics,  "sprung  from 
nature,"  and  which  shall  feel  "strong  enough  to 
stand  unaided,  born  and  rooted  within  ourselves, 
of  the  seed  of  universal  reason,  which  is  to  be  found 
within  every  unperverted  man."  He  eliminates 
the  supernatural,  and  claims  to  find  within  himself 
"as  much  doctrine  as  he  needs."  Sainte-Beuve 
was  not  wrong  when  he  said  that  a  chapter  might 
be  written  on  the  dogmatism  of  Montaigne.  But 
this  dogmatism  does  not  exceed  the  limits  of  practical 
reason.  It  is  a  doctrine  of  life,  which  he  bases  either 
on  the  precepts  and  examples  of  ancient  wisdom, 
or  on  conscience,  of  which  he  said  that  "its  grip  is 
tighter  and  more  severe  than  that  of  a  tribunal 
of  judges."  But  in  the  domain  of  pure  reason, 
Montaigne  is  indifferent  and  sceptical.  He  sings 
the  same  song  as  Pascal  on  the  impotence  of  human 


MONTAIGNE  59 

reason,  but  he  sings  it  to  another  tune,  and  the 
finale  is  not  the  same.  In  vain  are  we  reminded  that 
Montaigne  said  grace  before  meat  and  heard  mass 
in  his  bedroom.  It  is  none  the  less  true  that  in  the 
apartment  above,  in  the  sanctuary  of  his  library, 
he  had  caused  to  be  engraved  on  the  rafters  of  the 
ceiling,  as  if  to  have  them  constantly  hovering  over 
him,  fifty-six  maxims,  which  are  as  a  summary  of 
his  philosophy  and  the  essence  of  scepticism:  " Van- 
ity, uncertainty,  error.  ...  —  Man  is  but  a  vessel 
of  clay,  a  dim  shadow,  mud  and  ashes.  —  I  lay  down 
no  law;  I  do  not  understand;  I  suspend  judgment, 
etc.  .  .  ."  The  conclusion  of  his  intellectual  quest 
is  the  "I  know  not"  of  Socrates,  with  the  addition 
of  a  note  of  interrogation,  "What  do  I  know?" 


II 

MONTAIGNE'S  PEDAGOGY 

MONTAIGNE  is  no  pedagogue  of  the  people ;  alone, 
in  the  sixteenth  century,  the  men  of  the  Reforma- 
tion took  any  thought  of  popular  education.  The 
plan  that  he  puts  before  us,  in  the  celebrated  chapter 
Of  the  Institution  and  Education  of  Children,  was 
conceived  only  for  a  son  of  noble  family,  happily 
situated  and  of  exalted  birth,  his  little  neighbour 
at  the  castle  of  Gurson.1  His  theme  was  the  edu- 
cation, under  the  guidance  of  a  carefully  chosen 
"governor"  or  tutor,  of  a  young  nobleman  intended 
by  his  condition  for  a  life  of  case,  and  perhaps  of 
idleness.  But  as  of  this  little  nobleman  Montaigne 
wants  to  make  a  man,  his  views  often  extend  beyond 
the  limited  horizon  of  a  castle-education,  and  many 
of  his  maxims  are  applicable  to  children  of  all  con- 
ditions and  of  all  times.  Moreover,  Montaigne's 

1  This  Essay,  Chapter  XXIV  of  Book  I,  is  dedicated  to  Diane 
de  Foix,  Countess  de  Gurson,  with  reference  to  her  child,  who, 
for  that  matter,  was  not  yet  born.  Montaigne,  with  the  high 
spirits  of  a  Southerner,  prophesies  that  this  child  about  to  be 
born  must  needs  be  a  boy:  "for,  madam,  you  are  too  generous 
to  begin  with  other  than  a  man-child.  .  .  ." 

60 


MONTAIGNE  61 

impetuous  imagination  often  carried  him  far  beyond 
the  limits  within  which  he  seemed  to  have  intended 
to  keep  his  reflections ;  so  that  while  he  deals  with 
a  private  and  individual  education,  it  often  happens 
that  he  touches  on  pedagogical  questions  of  general 
import.  Lastly,  it  is  not  only  in  the  one  chapter 
dedicated  to  Countess  de  Gurson  that  Montaigne 
discusses  education;  his  whole  work  is  strewn  with 
digressions  in  which  he  gives  us  his  own  views,  or 
else  criticises  the  teaching  and  disciplinary  methods 
then  in  use.  "I  am  fond  of  reverting  to  this  ques- 
tion of  the  'inept-ness'  of  our  education." 

Montaigne,  who  is  averse  to  any  set  opinions, 
harbours  no  superstitious  belief  in  the  virtues  of  edu- 
cation. He  does  not  look  upon  it  as  an  infallible 
and  all-powerful  means  of  success,  nor  does  he  believe 
that  the  future  of  the  individual  depends  upon  it 
alone.  To  the  best  professional  pedagogues  he  op- 
poses "those  good  schoolmasters  which  are  Nature, 
Youth,  and  Health."  He  recognizes  the  strength  of 
physical  heredity,  and  that  also  of  moral  predestina- 
tion. 

"We  bear  within  ourselves  the  impulses,  not  only 
of  the  corporal  being,  but  also  of  the  thoughts  and 
inclinations  of  our  parents.  .  .  .  Natural  inclina- 
tions may  be  helped  and  strengthened  by  educa- 
tion, but  they  can  hardly  be  changed  or  overcome. 


62  MONTAIGNE 

I  have  seen  in  my  time  a  thousand  natures  fly  to 
virtue  or  to  vice,  in  opposition  to  the  discipline  they 
were  subjected  to.  There  is  no  one  who,  if  he 
hearkens  unto  himself,  will  not  discover  within  him 
a  form  which  is  his  own,  a  master-form,  which  fights 
against  education.  ..." 

At  every  moment  the  expressions  "  a  well-begotten 
soul,"  "an  ill-begotten  mind,"  recur  under  his  pen; 
and  he  quotes  himself  in  proof  of  the  action  of  natural 
and  hereditary  influences :  - 

"What  good  there  is  in  me  I  owe  to  the  accident 
of  my  birth ;  I  hold  it  neither  from  laws,  nor  precepts, 
nor  any  other  apprenticeship." 

If  he  admits  that  there  are  limits  to  the  effects  of 
education,  he  is  far,  however,  from  undervaluing 
its  importance.  "Who  is  there  but  sees  that  in  a 
state  everything  depends  on  this  education  and 
nurturing  ?"  And  consequently  he  would  view  with 
favour  the  intervention  of  the  State,  and  even  its 
sovereign  authority,  in  the  matter  of  education.  He 
laments  that  the  Spartans  and  the  Cretans  were  the 
only  nations  who  "committed  the  care  of  youth  to 
the  law" ;  and  quite  forgetting  that  it  is  for  a  mother 
of  good  birth  that  he  is  drawing  up  a  plan  of  domestic 
education,  he  declares  that  it  is  great  folly  to  leave 
education  under  the  authority  of  the  parents,  "how- 
ever foolish  and  wicked  they  may  be." 


MONTAIGNE  63 

Montaigne  is  ever  inspired  by  antiquity,  by  Plato, 
Socrates,  by  Plutarch  especially.  He  could  not, 
like  Rabelais,  give  himself  the  pleasure  of  reading 
in  the  original  text  "the  Opera  moralia  of  Plutarch 
and  the  fine  Dialogues  of  Plato."  And  yet  it  is 
by  calling  to  his  aid  his  memories  of  the  Classics, 
the  "  pedagogisms  "  of  Plato  and  the  Socratic  method, 
that,  after  Rabelais,  and  with  as  much  heat  as  the 
latter,  he  makes  a  violent  onslaught  on  the  " inept" 
education  of  his  time.  Whoever  is  acquainted  with 
his  invectives  against  pedantry,  vain  erudition, 
false  learning,  and  also  against  the  barbarous  dis- 
cipline of  the  Middle  Ages,  will  no  longer  be  tempted 
to  take  him  for  a  sceptic,  a  cold  and  indifferent  wit- 
ness of  the  evil  the  existence  of  which  he  recognizes 
and  condemns.  On  this  subject,  he  is  no  longer 
content  to  smile  and  to  jest;  he  waxes  indignant, 
levels  accusations,  is  carried  away  by  his  anger. 
He  finds  no  words  stinging  enough  to  scourge  ped- 
ants and  their  " asinine'7  and  overweening  presump- 
tion, to  break  away  from  empty  rhetoric,  from  syllo- 
gistic dialectics :  — 

"I  would  rather  be  a  good  cook  than  a  good  rhet- 
orician. ...  I  would  rather  have  my  son,  if  I 
had  one,  learn  to  talk  in  taverns  than  in  schools  of 
rhetoric.  .  .  .  Whoever  acquired  reason  through 
logic  ?  Where  are  its  fine  promises  ?  Does  one  hear 


64  MONTAIGNE 

more  rambling  nonsense  between  gossiping  fish- 
wives than  in  the  public  disputations  of  dialecticians  ? 
It  is  baroco  and  baralipton  which  have  so  besotted 
and  befogged  their  devotees." 

Montaigne's  pedagogy  is  then  before  aught  else 
a  protest  and  a  reaction  against  the  faults  of  medi- 
aeval schools,  and  also  against  the  abuses  which  the 
literary  fanaticism  of  the  Renaissance  had  brought 
into  fashion.  His  pedagogical  doctrine  —  for  he 
had  one  —  is  already  apparent  in  his  criticisms. 
It  is  a  counterthrust  of  the  new  spirit,  of  the  spirit 
of  light  and  liberty,  against  the  long  enslaving  of 
the  obscure  ages  which  had  proscribed  gentleness 
in  discipline  and  independence  in  teaching.  It  is 
also,  before  Rousseau,  a  return  to  Nature,  that  is  to 
say,  in  Montaigne's  words,  to  what  is  "general, 
common,  and  universal,"  to  what  is  human,  in 
short.  Montaigne  disowns  anything  "which  is 
supported  only  by  the  hoary  beard  and  the  wrinkles 
of  custom";  he  refers  everything  "to  truth  and 
reason."  He  is  bent  on  following  "the  fine  open 
road  traced  for  us  by  Nature,"  from  which  the 
importunate  subtlety  of  a  false  philosophy  turns 
us  aside  by  "enslaving  our  natural  freedom." 

"We  cannot  go  wrong  in  following  Nature.  The 
sovereign  precept  is  to  conform  to  it.  ...  It  is 
unreasonable  that  the  art  of  man  should  take  prece- 


MONTAIGNE  65 

dence  of  our  great  and  powerful  mother  Nature.  .  .  . 
Wherever  Nature  shines  in  its  purity,  it  is  marvellous 
how  it  puts  to  shame  our  vain  and  frivolous  enter- 
prises." 

Montaigne  is  undoubtedly  the  first  who  brought 
into  prominence  this  truth,  which  became  after 
him  one  of  the  commonplaces  of  classical  pedagogy, 
that  before  that  specialized  education  which  turns 
out  a  professional  man,  a  scientist,  or  a  scholar, 
there  is,  there  ought  to  be,  a  general  education  which 
makes  the  man.  He  explains  this  humorously  under 
the  form  of  an  anecdote :  - 

"Being  once  on  my  journey  toward  Orleans,  it 
was  my  chance  to  meet  upon  that  plain  that  lyeth 
on  this  side  Clery,  with  two  masters  of  arts  travelling 
toward  Bordeaux,  about  fifty  paces  one  from  an- 
other; far  off  behind  them  I  descried  a  troop  of 
horsemen,  their  master  riding  foremost,  who  was  the 
Earl  of  Rochefoucault.  One  of  my  servants  in- 
quiring of  the  first  of  those  masters  of  arts,  what 
gentleman  he  was  that  followed  him ;  supposing  my 
servant  had  meant  his  fellow-scholar,  for  he  had  not 
yet  seen  the  Earl's  train,  answered  pleasantly,  'He 
is  no  gentleman,  but  a  grammarian,  and  I  am  a 
logician.'  Now,  we  that  contrariwise  seek  not  to 
frame  a  grammarian,  nor  a  logician,  but  a  complete 
gentleman,  let  us  give  them  leave  to  misspend  their 


66  MONTAIGNE 

time;  we  have  elsewhere,  and  somewhat  else  of 
more  import  to  do." 

The  essential  element  of  this  general  education 
consists  in  the  education  of  judgment,  and  that  is 
the  culminating  point  of  Montaigne's  pedagogy. 

If  the  scholar  has  learned  to  judge,  the  supreme 
end  of  education  will  have  been  reached.  What, 
then,  is  meant  by  judging? 

To  judge  is  first  of  all  to  think  for  one's  self,  to 
hold  opinions  which  are  our  own ;  it  is  to  inquire 
after  truth  through  an  effort  of  personal  reflection. 

To  judge  is  to  think  rightly,  to  see  clearly  in  all 
questions  which  may  present  themselves,  thanks  to 
the  clear  understanding  that  pertains  to  an  unwarped 
mind. 

To  judge  well,  lastly,  is  to  be  able  and  ready  to 
act  well.  For  correct  judgment  keeps  one  free  from 
the  errors  and  illusions  which  are  the  source  of  evil 
actions.  Soundness  of  thought  calms  and  appeases 
passions.  To  think  for  one's  self  and  to  think  rightly 
is  already  to  have  acquired  moral  strength. 

On  the  first  of  these  points,  that  is,  independence 
of  thought,  Montaigne  explains  his  views  as  forcibly 
as  the  author  of  the  Discourse  on  Method  will  do  a 
century  later :  - 

"Learn  to  think  freely,  and  not  to  follow  lamely 
on  the  track  of  another;  make  bold  to  shake  ridicu- 


MONTAIGNE  67 

lous  foundations  upon  which  false  opinions  are  built. 
.  .  .    Truth  and  reason  are  common  to  all." 

Montaigne  himself  gives  the  example  of  this  liberty 
of  thought ;  he  does  not  allow  himself  to  be  ensnared 
and  blinded  by  the  authority  of  present  custom, 
nor  by  fashion,  which  "topsyturvies"  the  under- 
standing of  his  contemporaries.  He  inveighs  with 
inexhaustible  vigour  against  purely  verbal  education, 
that  which  makes  no  appeal  to  personal  judgment, 
and  which  is  content  to  stamp  upon  the  memory 
knowledge  that  the  mind  has  neither  tested  nor 
examined,  and  that  it  does  not  assimilate. 

"We  are  like  unto  him  who,  being  in  need  of  fire, 
should  go  and  beg  some  at  his  neighbour's,  and  find- 
ing there  fire  in  plenty,  should  stop  there  to  warm 
himself,  without  remembering  to  bring  any  home.  - 
Even  as  the  birds  which  feed  their  young  carry  the 
grain  in  their  beaks  without  tasting  it,  thus  do  our 
pedants  purloin  science  from  books,  which  they  in  no 
way  digest,  but  merely  keep  on  their  lips,  ever  ready 
to  part  with  it  again  and  scatter  it  to  the  winds." 

Learning  is  of  use  only  to  him  who  has  been  able 
to  assimilate  it,  to  espouse  it,  and  to  make  really 
his  own  the  opinions  which  one  borrows  from  others. 
The  work  of  the  mind  should  resemble  that  of  bees, 
who  fly  hither  and  thither  sucking  the  flowers,  but 
with  their  plunder  they  make  honey,  after  which  it 


68  MONTAIGNE 

is  no  longer  either  thyme  or  marjoram.  .  .  .  What 
is  important  is  not  the  extent  of  one's  knowledge, 
but  one's  power  of  reflection;  it  is  the  strength  of 
a  well-developed  reason,  which  weighs  and  scruti- 
nizes the  motives  of  its  beliefs  and  shapes  its  opinions 
freely :  "The  soul  is  not  a  vessel  that  requires  filling ; 
it  is  a  hearth  to  be  warmed."  —  "I  would  rather 
shape  my  soul  than  furnish  it." 

Nor  indeed  would  it  avail  that  our  judgment  should 
be  our  own,  if  it  should  prove  to  be  false.  Rectitude 
of  mind  is  one  of  the  foremost  intellectual  virtues. 
Better  a  well-fashioned  head  than  a  well-filled  one. 
If,  says  Montaigne,  I  like  to  subject  to  "inquisition," 
that  is  to  say,  to  examination,  "the  continual  variety 
of  human  affairs,  it  is  that  our  judgment  may  become 
the  more  enlightened  and  the  stronger."  He  does, 
personally,  everything  he  can  to  moderate  the  rash 
impetuosity  of  his  own  judgment.  He  recommends 
prudence,  and  is  mindful  of  it  himself.  He  reminds 
us  that  "each  thing  has  a  hundred  faces" ;  and  that 
it  beseems  us,  therefore,  to  analyze,  to  distinguish, 
and  also  to  pause,  in  any  delicate  subject,  when  we 
feel  that  we  cannot  proceed,  "sounding  the  ford," 
as  he  says, ' '  and  if  we  find  it  too  deep  for  our  stature, 
keeping  on  the  bank";  that  is  to  say,  abstaining 
from  formulating  an  opinion. 

Judgment,  then,  is  the  critical  spirit  which  ob- 


MONTAIGNE  69 

serves,  reasons,  and  concludes ;  it  is  the  understand- 
ing which  disentangles  truth  from  error.  But  it  is 
also  the  faculty  which  distinguishes  good  from  evil, 
and  which  regulates  our  manner  of  living.  Mon- 
taigne does  not  keep  judgment  apart  from  moral 
conscience.  It  is  that  we  may  become  better  men 
that  he  would  have  us  better  able  to  judge.  He  con- 
stantly associates  those  two  points  of  view.  He 
will  say:  "This  will  make  men  better  advised  and 
more  virtuous."  His  chief  reproach  against  the 
education  of  his  day  is  that  it  leaves  both  our  under- 
standing and  our  conscience  empty  of  content. 
The  Middle  Ages  subordinated  all  teaching  to  theol- 
ogy; Montaigne  subordinates  it  to  ethics.  True 
education  tends  toward  action.  "My  science  is 
to  learn  how  to  live."  He  never  ceases  to  expa- 
tiate on  this  subject,  and  he  repeats  under  every 
form  that  the  advantage  we  derive  from  study  is 
that  we  become  better  and  wiser.  If  he  is  so  violent 
in  his  attacks  on  book-learning,  it  is  because  the 
latter  commits  the  mistake  of  neglecting  practical 
and  moral  education. 

"Behold  this  man,  snuffling,  blear-eyed,  and 
unwashed,  rising  after  midnight  from  his  study. 
Think  you  that  he  is  seeking,  among  his  books,  how 
he  may  become  better,  more  contented,  and  wiser? 
Alas,  no !  .  .  ." 


70  MONTAIGNE 

Could  Montaigne  point  to  his  own  example  to 
extol  the  theory  that  looks  upon  moral  education 
and  the  cultivation  of  judgment  as  one,  and  to  guar- 
antee its  efficacy?  He  did  indeed  exercise  his 
judgment,  "that  universal  tool,"  with  rare  inde- 
pendence. He  brings  it  to  bear  on  every  possible 
subject,  in  his  delightful  chats  with  his  reader.  He 
would  descant  on  military  tactics,  on  the  wars  of 
Scipio  and  Hannibal,  of  Francis  I  and  Charles  V, 
with  as  much  ease  and  assurance  as  on  joy  and  sad- 
ness, love  and  friendship.  He  admired  the  military 
genius  of  Caesar,  and  his  prodigious  intelligence; 
but  he  did  not  hesitate  to  judge  him  severely  for 
destroying  the  Roman  Republic,  thereby  "  rendering 
his  memory  abominable  to  all  good  men."  He  never 
abdicated  his  liberty  of  thought,  faithful  to  the  proud 
motto:  " Judgment  must  everywhere  maintain  its 
rights."  But  was  he  "better  and  wiser"  on  this 
account  ?  He  tells  us  he  was. 

"I  have  seen  my  friends  sometimes  consider  that 
I  had  the  advantage  of  them  in  courage  and  patience, 
when  my  only  advantage  was  in  judgment  and 
opinion." 

In  his  fits  of  stoicism,  it  is  to  his  understanding 
that  he  appeals  for  help  to  bear  with  misfortune; 
he  goes  so  far  as  to  say  that  "a  man  of  understand- 
ing loses  nothing  of  himself,  in  the  disasters  of  his 
country,  in  the  ruin  of  his  family." 


MONTAIGNE  71 

Thanks  to  his  judgment,  he  claims  to  have  partly 
escaped  the  sufferings  which  afflict  most  men:  "For 
the  world  looks  upon  several  things  as  horrible, 
which  I  contemplate  more  or  less  with  indifference." 

More  than  once  he  put  a  curb  to  his  passions,  he 
resisted  impulses  of  anger  and  hatred,  by  seeking 
for  a  point  of  support  in  his  intelligence  alone :  — 

"I  am  but  little  given  to  those  propensities  which 
arise  within  us  without  any  guidance  or  interven- 
tion of  our  judgment." 

Yes;  but  again  he  will  say,  "My  affections  change, 
but  not  my  judgment."  Is  this  not  an  admission 
that  sensibility  does  not  always  depend  on  judg- 
ment, that  it  asserts  itself  without,  and  in  spite  of, 
our  judgment?  And  he  writes  also,  "Whatever 
excesses  I  ever  indulged  in,  I  condemned;  for  my 
judgment  was  not  infected  by  them."  Does  he 
not  then  recognize  that  a  sound  judgment,  even 
though  it  preserves  us  from  errors  of  thought,  does 
not  always  preserve  us  from  errors  of  conduct? 
What  does  it  matter  if  error  condemns  them,  when 
it  does  not  prevent  them  ? 

Howbeit,  and  since  judgment  is,  according  to 
Montaigne,  the  dominant  faculty  of  every  well- 
trained  man,1  let  us  examine  by  what  means  he 

1  Full  of  Montaigne's  teachings,  Mile,  de  Gournaysaid:  "Judg- 
ment raises  men  above  beasts,  Socrates  over  men,  and  God  over 
Socrates." 


72  MONTAIGNE 

intends  us  to  acquire  this  most  precious  of  all  quali- 
ties. What,  in  short,  is  his  practical  pedagogy? 

Here,  Montaigne  is  an  excellent  guide,  who  sub- 
stitutes a  natural,  living,  and  free  education  to  the 
artificial  and  abstract,  mechanical  and  servile  in- 
struction of  the  Middle  Ages.  He  seems  to  unwrap, 
one  by  one,  the  bands  in  which  scholasticism  had 
enfolded  the  human  mind;  the  mummy,  immo- 
bilized in  the  cloths  of  syllogistic  reasoning,  seems 
to  come  back  gradually  to  life  and  freedom. 

What  he  desiderates  in  the  first  place,  is  that 
the  child's  initiative  should  be  allowed  full  play. 
The  tutor  shall  allow  his  pupil  to  "trot  on  in  front 
of  him,"  in  order  to  judge  of  his  natural  pace,  and 
to  be  able  thereafter  to  accommodate  himself  to  it. 
Whereupon  some  critics  exclaim,  not  without  in- 
justice, "  Education  after  the  fashion  of  Montaigne 
resolves  itself  into  nothing."  1  Do  they  wish,  then, 
to  return  to  that  tyrannical  education  which  takes 
no  account  of  a  child's  bent,  which  oppresses  him 
under  the  yoke  of  uncompromising  didactic  methods, 
leaving  no  opening,  no  outlet  for  natural  forces? 
Montaigne  is  right,  when  he  asks  that  the  pupil 
shall  be  accustomed  to  think  for  himself,  and  allowed 
opportunity  to  speak.  He  is  right  when  he  pro- 

1  Cf.  M.  fimile  Faguet's  Preface  (p.  xv)  to  the  posthumous 
work  of  Guillaume  Guizot :  Montaigne,  Etudes  et  fragments. 


MONTAIGNE  73 

scribes  instruction  which  appeals  solely  to  the 
memory.  Although  he  recognizes  that  memory  is 
a  precious  tool  " without  which  judgment  can 
scarcely  perform  its  duties,"  he  nevertheless  points 
to  the  fact  that  "an  excellent  memory  very  often 
goes  with  a  feeble  judgment."  It  is  not  through 
learning  by  rote  fine  maxims,  "that  have  been 
stamped  upon  his  memory,  to  be  fired  off  like  oracles," 
that  the  child  will  achieve  his  intellectual  and  moral 
education.  His  reflection  and  intelligence  should 
be  appealed  to  early, — as  early  as  possible.  That 
his  understanding  may  become  active,  it  must  needs 
be  given  full  independence :  - 

"Let  judgment  preserve  its  free  gait;  we  render 
it  slavish  and  timid  if  we  deny  it  any  initiative." 

Therefore,  we  must  not  overload  it  with  formal 
teaching;  we  must  not  imitate  those  loquacious 
educators  who  do  not  allow  their  pupils  time  to  look 
around  them,  and  who  bawl  facts  into  their  ears 
"as  if  they  were  pouring  them  into  a  funnel." 

It  is  through  observation,  through  personal  and 
direct  experience,  by  frequenting  men  and  looking 
at  things,  that  the  child  will  first  develop  his  judg- 
ment. The  commerce  of  men  is  marvellously  fitted 
to  form  the  mind.  We  know  what  pleasure  Mon- 
taigne derived  from  it.  He  loved  to  converse,  to 
discourse,  and  to  "confer,"  on  condition,  however, 


74  MONTAIGNE 

that  he  might  choose  his  company.  "The  incompar- 
able author  of  the  Art  of  Conferring"  as  Pascal  said, 
saw  in  this  art  "the  most  fruitful  exercise  of  our 
mind";  and  one  that  he  considered  pleasanter  than 
any  other  action  in  life.  In  an  animated  and  famil- 
iar conversation  he  found  more  excitement  for  the 
mind  than  in  the  "languid  exertion  of  reading." 
-"We  should  live  with  those  who  are  alive/' 
he  would  exclaim.  And  so  he  invited  children  them- 
selves to  mingle  in  the  conversations  and  discussions 
of  the  people  about  them,  to  take  a  share  in  them, 
at  the  risk  of  having  to  acknowledge  with  good  grace 
any  mistake  due  to  their  ignorance.  He  invited 
them  to  listen  with  attentive  ear  to  all  that  was  said 
around  them.  The  malice  of  a  page,  the  foolish 
act  of  some  valet,  a  table  utterance,  all  these  offer 
opportunity  for  instruction.  Everything  should  be 
to  an  awakening  judgment  an  occasion  for  reflection 
and  study:  "The  child  should  probe  the  ability 
of  each  one:  cow-herd,  mason,  or  passer-by.  .  .  ." 
That  was  what  Montaigne  did  on  his  own  account : 
after  spending  long  hours  in  his  library  in  holding 
commerce  with  the  greatest  minds  of  antiquity, 
he  took  pleasure  in  conversing  familiarly  with  a 
carpenter  or  a  joiner. 

To  observe  things  is  not  less  profitable  than  to 
converse  with  men :  — 


MONTAIGNE  75 

"Let  a  child's  fancy  be  encouraged  toward  a 
seemly  interest  in  all  things.  Whatever  striking 
objects  there  may  be  around  him,  let  him  see  them: 
a  building,  a  fountain,  a  man,  the  ground  of  an 
ancient  battle,  the  spot  where  Caesar  or  Charle- 
magne passed.  Those  are  all  very  pleasant  things 
to  learn.  ..." 

The  spirit  of  the  intuitive  method,  of  object  les- 
sons, that  which  will  animate  Froebel,  Pestalozzi, 
has  already  breathed  upon  Montaigne.  Far  from 
isolating  the  child  in  the  study  of  the  past,  he  throws 
him  into  real  life,  brings  him  into  contact  with 
realities.  He  expects  much  from  that  gradual 
education  which  results  from  the  "  frequentation  of 
the  world,"  which  proceeds  spontaneously  from  the 
circumstances,  the  surroundings,  the  environment 
amid  which  the  pupil  is  placed.  His  knowledge 
shapes  itself,  not  abstract,  ready-made,  and  passive, 
out  of  a  book  reeled  off  by  heart,  but  living  and  active 
out  of  the  facts  which  he  observes  and  interprets. 
And  take  note  that  Montaigne  is  not  content  with 
a  superficial  and  lightly  made  observation.  He 
would  seem,  at  times,  to  be  the  precursor  of  Bacon, 
and  to  be  laying  the  first  foundations  of  experimen- 
tal logic,  —  when  he  says,  for  instance,  "It  is  not 
enough  to  number  one's  experiences,  they  should 
be  weighed  and  set  in  order." 


76  MONTAIGNE 

Montaigne  is  far  from  thinking,  as  Rousseau  was 
to  do,  of  excluding  books  from  education.  But  he 
would  have  them  used  with  discretion,  in  modera- 
tion, and  always  with  a  view  to  forming  the  judg- 
ment. What  he  is  fighting  against  is  not  the  book, 
but  the  book  learned  by  rote,  the  book  read  without 
criticism. 

Reading,  moreover,  is  an  occupation  which, 
carried  to  excess,  may  become  as  painful  as  any 
other;  if,  in  the  commerce  of  books,  we  should  lose 
our  gaiety  and  health,  "our  chief  assets/7  let  us 
not  hesitate,  but  give  up  our  reading !  As  for  him, 
he  likes  only  two  kinds  of  books:  pleasant  books 
which  amuse  and  "tickle"  him,  or  else  those  which 
comfort  and  advise  him,  "for  the  better  arrange- 
ment of  his  life  and  death."  He  does  not  say  which 
books  he  would  propose  to  put  into  children's  hands, 
but  at  least  he  teaches  us  how  those  which  the  mas- 
ter has  chosen  ought  to  be  read.  Reading  must 
exercise,  not  our  memory,  but  our  judgment.  We 
should  ask  for  an  account,  not  only  of  the  words 
of  the  text,  but  of  "their  meaning  and  substance." 
Such  maxims  may  appear  trite  at  the  present  day, 
but,  at  the  time  of  Montaigne,  they  were  something 
quite  new.  How  often  we  have  heard  repeated  after 
him  —  but  the  utterance  originated  with  him  - 
that  in  the  study  of  history,  the  explanation  of  the 


MONTAIGNE  77 

events,  and  a  reasoned  acquaintance  with  the  char- 
acters, are  of  more  importance  than  dates  or  facts ! 

"Let  the  master  bethink  himself  whereto  his 
charge  tendeth,  and  imprint  not  so  much  in  his 
scholar's  mind  the  date  of  the  ruin  of  Carthage,  as 
the  manners  of  Hannibal  and  Scipio;  not  so  much 
where  Marcellus  died,  as  why  it  was  unworthy  of 
his  duty  that  he  should  have  died  there;  let  him 
teach  him  not  so  much  to  know  histories  as  to 
judge  of  them." 

"Exercise  the  judgment,"  such  is  the  constant 
refrain  of  Montaigne's  pedagogy.  But  an  enlight- 
ened and  healthy  judgment  should  not  only  rule 
over  our  intelligence,  it  should  become  a  law  unto 
our  actions.  Wherefore  the  child  must  be  schooled 
in  philosophy,  that  is  to  say,  in  ethics.  "Philosophy 
teaches  us  how  to  live."  Its  study  is  of  supreme 
importance,  and  is  also  chronologically  the  earliest 
teaching  that  Montaigne  presents  to  the  child. 
"Among  the  liberal  arts,"  he  says,  —  forgetting 
that  philosophy  or  ethics  figured  neither  in  the 
Trivium  nor  in  the  Quadrivium,  —  "let  us  begin  by 
the  art  which  makes  us  free,"  that  is,  by  philosophy. 
"  Let  the  first  discourses  in  which  we  steep  the 
child's  understanding  be  those  which  regulate  his 
morals  and  his  good  sense."  And  foreseeing  the 
objection  that  children  are  too  young,  and  that  it 


78  MONTAIGNE 

is  difficult  to  put  before  a  dawning  intelligence  les- 
sons that  it  would  be  incapable  of  understanding, 
he  endeavours  to  prove  that  "philosophy  has  simple 
discourses,"  and  that  a  child  is  able  to  understand 
such  "from  the  time  when  he  returns  from  nurse, 
much  better  than  he  can  learn  to  read  or  write." 

"It  is  philosophy  that  teacheth  us  to  live,  and 
infancy  as  well  as  other  ages  may  plainly  read  her 
lessons  in  the  same.  .  .  .  Philosophy  hath  dis- 
courses whereof  infancy  as  well  as  decaying  old 
age  may  make  good  use." 

We  may  treat  with  scepticism  those  somewhat 
rash  affirmations.  Montaigne  himself  is  conscious 
of  the  difficulty.  Hence  he  seeks  means  to  smooth 
the  somewhat  rugged  road  along  which  he  is  leading 
the  child.  The  tutor  shall  hint  at  the  moral  lesson 
rather  than  teach  it.  This  lesson  will  be  mingled 
with  every  action,  every  event  of  the  child's  life; 
— we  seem  already  to  be  listening  to  Rousseau — "  it 
will  insinuate  itself  without  making  itself  felt." 
Therefore,  no  teaching  of  doctrine,  no  formal  lessons. 
Montaigne  realizes  that  to  guide  us  through  life,  to 
lead  us  toward  action,  a  moral  doctrine,  be  it  ever 
so  well  understood,  would  not  suffice,  and  that  it 
must  go  hand  in  hand  with  practice.  "It  is  through 
practice  that  we  must  exercise  and  train  our  soul, 
that  may  bear  itself  as  we  wish."  The  child,  to  be- 


MONTAIGNE  79 

come  a  righteous  man,  must  go  through  a  personal 
apprenticeship  to  virtue.  It  would  be  absurd,  says 
Montaigne,  if  Le  Paluel,  and  Pompee,  "these  fine 
dancers  of  my  early  days,"  should  think  "to  teach 
us  their  steps  and  capers  by  inviting  us  to  look  on, 
without  stirring  from  our  place";  and  it  would  be 
equally  ridiculous  to  imagine  that  "  one  can  train 
the  understanding  without  setting  it  into  motion." 
Let  no  one  say,  then,  that  Montaigne  failed  to  appre- 
ciate the  value  of  action,  the  necessity  for  exercising 
the  will,  and  the  influence  of  habit. 

"Men  cannot  be  made  brave  and  warlike  on  the 
spot,  through  a  stirring  harangue,  any  more  than 
one  becomes  a  musician  of  a  sudden  through  hearing 
a  good  song.  In  either  case  proficiency  must  be 
acquired  through  a  long  apprenticeship,  through 
long  and  constant  training." 

The  foundations  of  moral  life,  for  Montaigne,  are 
neither  the  authority  of  religion,  nor  faithful  obedi- 
ence to  the  doctrine  of  such  or  such  a  philosopher, 
but  personal  effort.  He  tried  to  form  his  own  life, 
to  guide  it,  to  protect  it  from  the  vicissitudes  of 
fortune.  "All  my  efforts  have  tended  to  the  fash- 
ioning of  my  life ;  such  has  been  my  trade,  such  the 
work  I  have  achieved."  He  complains  that  the 
majority  of  men  are  unable  to  draw  up  a  well-thought- 
out  plan,  a  settled  design,  for  their  conduct;  they 


80  MONTAIGNE 

resolve  on  their  course  of  action  day  by  day,  "from 
hand  to  mouth."  The  ideal  that  he  conceived  for 
himself  is  perhaps  shabby,  inferior,  marred  by  self- 
ishness, but  after  all,  he  had  an  ideal,  and  a  plan  of 
conduct. 

For  the  evolving  of  such  a  plan,  he  recommends 
to  others  what  he  practised  himself:  meditation, 
self-communion :  — 

"Look  within  yourselves,  know  yourselves,  hold 
on  to  yourselves.  Your  mind,  your  will,  which  you 
are  spending  elsewhere,  bring  it  back  within  your- 
self. .  .  ." 

Pecaut,  the  educator  of  conscience,  would  have 
applauded.  It  is  true  that ' '  holding  on  to  one's  self," 
when  it  is  Montaigne  who  is  speaking,  is  no  guarantee 
of  a  very  firm  point  of  support,  or  of  a  very  stable 
foundation.  But  at  least  it  proves  that  the  author 
of  the  Essays  sought  within  himself,  and  not  in  some 
exterior  authority,  the  foundation  of  his  moral  life. 
We  must,  he  says,  "establish  writhin  us  a  pattern 
by  which  we  can  gauge  our  actions."  And  again :  - 

"Let  man  govern  himself,  respecting  and  fearing 
his  reason  and  his  conscience,  so  that  he  cannot 
without  shame  stumble  in  their  presence.  .  .  . 
There  is  a  peculiar  satisfaction  in  well-doing  which 
causes  us  to  rejoice  within  ourselves;  this  is  the  only 
reward  which  never  fails  us.  We  must  fol- 


MONTAIGNE  81 

low  the  straight  road  for  the  sake  of  its  straightness, 
for  the  satisfaction  which  a  well-regulated  con- 
science derives  from  well-doing." 

How,  after  reading  such  words,  would  it  be  pos- 
sible still  to  maintain,  as  some  people  have  done, 
that  Montaigne  "  administered  anesthetics  to  men's 
consciences"? 

Montaigne  is  so  thoroughly  convinced  that  phi- 
losophy, "which  fashions  judgment  and  morals," 
ought  to  be  the  principal  lesson  of  childhood,  that 
he  despairs  of  educating  those  who  should  show  no 
taste  for  it.  If  my  disciple,  he  says,  takes  no  pleas- 
ure in  it,  if  he  would  rather  listen  to  a  fable  than  to 
some  wise  observation,  if  he  prefers  dancing  to 
righting,  "I  see  no  other  remedy  but  to  establish 
him  as  confectioner  in  some  good  town,  were  he 
even  the  son  of  a  duke."  And  even,  thinking  he 
has  not  said  enough  against  the  child  who  is  rebel- 
lious to  moral  teaching,  as  if  taken  with  a  fit  of  rage, 
he  writes  in  the  margin  of  this  passage,  in  a  later 
edition,  "Let  his  tutor  twist  his  neck  early,  if  there 
be  no  witnesses !  .  .  ."  On  that  day  Montaigne 
really  lacked  moderation. 

After  all,  there  is  perhaps  no  reason  to  be  aston- 
ished that  Montaigne  should  consider  the  study  of 
moral  philosophy  as  accessible  to  children,  and  even 
as  more  intelligible  to  them  than  "a  tale  from 


82  MONTAIGNE 

Boccaccio."  He  makes  it  so  amiable,  so  playful, 
so  "  frolicsome."  On  the  one  hand  he  docks  phi- 
losophy of  everything  that  is  calculated  to  make  it 
formal  and  forbidding:  technical  expressions  and 
pedantic  terminology.  "It  is  quibblers  who  must 
bear  the  blame,  if  philosophy  appears  but  a  vain 
and  fantastic  name."  On  the  other  hand,  he  gen- 
erally professes  an  amiable  and  easy-going  moral 
doctrine,  which  is  not  hostile  to  pleasure;  it  loves 
life,  beauty,  glory,  and  health.  Consequently,  it 
would  be  as  easy  for  the  pupil  to  accomplish  duty 
as  it  is  for  the  master  to  teach  its  rules.  "The  re- 
ward of  virtue  lies  therein,  that  it  is  so  easy,  useful, 
and  pleasant  to  practise." 

Never  did  Montaigne's  fluctuating  thought  un- 
consciously abandon  itself  more  to  contradictions, 
to  sudden  changes  of  view,  than  in  the  successive 
definitions  which  he  gives  of  morality  and  of  virtue. 
Was  it  to  crave  forgiveness  for  these  that  he  com- 
plained so  often  of  his  treacherous  memory  ?  But  it 
is  not  from  one  chapter  to  another,  it  is  in  the  same 
Essay,  at  a  few  lines'  distance,  that  he  contradicts 
himself  without  seeming  to  notice  it.  He  has  just 
said  of  the  lofty  virtue  of  Socrates  that  it  was  nat- 
ural to  him,  that  to  practise  it  he  had  not  had  to 
fight  with  evil  instincts,  and  he  admires  him  for  that 
spontaneous  wisdom,  to  which  nature  had  opposed 


MONTAIGNE  83 

no  obstacle.  Now,  a  little  further  on,  he  writes: 
11  Socrates  used  to  admit  to  those  who  discerned 
in  his  countenance  some  inclination  to  vice,  that 
such  was,  in  truth,  his  natural  propensity,  but  that 
he  had  cured  it  through  self-discipline." 

A  more  serious  contradiction  is  that  which  brings 
epicureanism  and  stoicism  into  conflict  within 
Montaigne  himself.  How  often  he  has  celebrated 
an  easy  and  amiable  virtue,  which  "preaches  only 
feasting  and  good  living,  and  constant  merry- 
making." He  is  angry  that  virtue  should  be  clothed 
in  sable,  "a  foolish  and  ugly  dress."  He  likes  wis- 
dom to  be  cheerful.  He  avoids  " rigidity  and  aus- 
terity of  living,  and  holds  all  surly  countenances  in 
suspicion."  He  hates  those  cross-grained  and  mo- 
rose minds  which  ignore  the  pleasures  of  life.  And 
smitten  with  real  poetic  fury,  he  sings,  in  a  well- 
known  passage,  a  hymn  to  the  Virtue  of  his  dreams : 
to  "  Virtue,  who  gloriously,  as  on  a  throne  of  majesty, 
sits  sovereign,  goodly,  triumphant,  lovely,  equally 
delicious  and  courageous,  professing  herself  to  be 
an  irreconcilable  enemy  to  all  sourness,  austerity, 
fear,  and  compulsion ;  having  Nature  for  her  guide, 
Fortune  and  Voluptuousness  for  her  companions," 
etc.1  Montaigne  grows  intoxicated  with  his  own 
words;  similes  and  epithets  shine  and  burst  forth 

1  Essays,  Book  I,  Chap.  XXV. 


84  MONTAIGNE 

in  a  magnificent  flight  of  sparkling  language.  But 
how  comes  it  that  after  discoursing  on  the  "paths 
of  wisdom,  shady  and  flowery,  and  soft  to  tread  on," 
the  same  philosopher  changes  his  mind  to  the  extent 
of  writing  that  "virtue  refuses  to  take  ease  for  a 
companion";  that  "this  easy,  soft,  and  gently 
sloping  path,  along  which  a  naturally  good  inclina- 
tion guides  its  steps,"  is  not  that  of  true  virtue; 
and  that  in  short  the  latter  demands  "  a  rugged  and 
thorny  path"  ?  It  is  Zeno,  whom  he  calls  "the  fore- 
most man  of  the  foremost  philosophic  school,  and 
fit  to  teach  all  others,"  that  Montaigne  now  takes 
for  his  guide.  It  is  the  virtue  of  the  Stoics  which 
he  is  extolling,  that  which  "rings  out  something 
greater  and  more  active,"  and  to  attain  to  which 
it  is  not  enough  "through  a  happy  disposition, 
gently  and  peacefully  to  walk  in  the  footsteps  of 
reason." 

We  must  not  expect  from  Montaigne  a  complete 
and  precise  plan  of  studies,  nor  ask  him  for  more 
than  he  promised  us.  He  warned  us  himself  that 
he  would  have  but  little  to  say  on  teaching  properly 
so  called,  "forasmuch  as  he  could  add  nothing  of  any 
moment  to  it."  It  is  only  by  the  way,  and  in  few 
words,  that  he  mentions  any  other  studies  than 
philosophy.  And  he  commits  the  grave  blunder  of 
putting  them  off  until  the  day  when  the  child's 


MONTAIGNE  85 

judgment  shall  have  been  formed.  Then  only  shall 
he  be  taught  "what  is  meant  by  logic,  physics, 
geometry,  rhetoric."  Those  are  assuredly  very 
short-sighted  views.  Montaigne  forgets  that  those 
special  studies,  in  a  well-understood  pedagogical 
system,  can  and  ought  to  be  the  very  instruments 
of  the  education  of  the  mind;  that  they  form  an 
essential  part  of  " mental  gymnastics" ;  that  " object 
lessons"  and  familiar  talks  on  ethical  subjects  can- 
not suffice  to  enlighten  the  reason,  and  to  stock 
the  mind  with  the  necessary  knowledge;  that  the 
intelligence  requires  that  more  substantial  nourish- 
ment which  can  only  be  provided  by  the  general  and 
abstract  truths  contained  in  the  various  literary 
and  scientific  subjects  of  education. 

Montaigne  has  been  reproached,  not  without 
reason,  with  having  strangely  restricted  the  part 
which  science  ought  to  play  in  education,  and  hav- 
ing given  it  too  modest  a  place  in  his  school  pro- 
gramme. Nor  would  it  be  a  sufficient  excuse  to  urge 
that  in  his  days  science  could  hardly  be  said  to  exist. 
It  was  equally  non-existent  at  the  time  of  Rabelais, 
and  yet  the  latter,  in  a  prophetic  vision  of  the  future, 
put  down  on  his  programme,  as  if  they  had  already 
accomplished  their  work,  all  the  branches  of  natural 
science.  No,  we  must  admit  that  it  is  Montaigne's 
tendency  —  anxious  as  he  is  before  aught  else  to 


86  MONTAIGNE 

shape  his  pupil's  moral  nature  —  to  despise  pure 
science,  that  which  affords  no  help,  no  rules,  for  our 
practical  conduct  in  life,  and  which ' '  often  goes  to  use- 
less lengths  or  useless  depths  in  its  considerations." 
It  should  be  of  no  moment  to  us,  he  says,  whether 
Copernicus  is  right  or  Ptolemy.  Anything  of  the 
nature  of  a  speculative  problem  interests  him  but 
little.  We  are  "very  simple"  to  teach  our  children 
the  science  of  heavenly  bodies,  before  the  science  of 
man.  And  yet,  let  us  beware;  it  is  especially  false 
science,  verbal  learning,  undigested  erudition,  which 
he  attacks :  — 

"I  love  and  honour  learning  as  much  as  those  who 
have  it,  and,  put  to  its  proper  use,  it  is  the  most 
noble  and  powerful  acquisition  of  man;  but  with 
regard  to  those  (and  their  number  is  legion)  who 
rely  for  their  understanding  on  their  memory,  and 
who  are  helpless  without  their  book-learning,  I  hate 
them,  if  I  dare  say  so,  rather  more  than  stupidity 
itself.  .  .  .  Doctrine  is  a  most  useful  accessory 
to  a  well-born  soul;  to  another  soul  it  may  be  per- 
nicious and  hurtful;  ...  in  some  hands,  it  is  a 
sceptre,  in  others  a  fool's  bauble.  .  .  ." 

So  that  Montaigne's  contemptuous  indifference, 
his  hostility,  are  directed  less  against  science  as  such 
than  against  science  ill-practised,  and  put  to  wrong 
uses  in  education.  He  gives  it  a  place  in  his  school 


MONTAIGNE  87 

programme.  Rabelais  said  to  his  pupil,  '''In  short, 
let  me  see  abysmal  depths  of  science."  Does  not 
Montaigne  express  very  much  the  same  thing  when 
he  says,  of  the  physical  universe,  aln  short,  I 
would  have  it  be  my  scholar's  book"?  But  even 
in  this  study  of  the  universe,  Montaigne  continues  to 
pursue  his  moral  and  practical  ideal.  If  he  asks  that 
man  should  understand  nature  in  general,  it  is  that 
he  may  admire  its  " great  and  sovereign  majesty," 
in  order  the  better  to  realize  what  a  small  place  he 
holds  in  it,  and  to  understand  that  his  ambitions 
should  be  in  conformity  with  his  humble  destiny. 
The  study  of  nature,  like  the  frequentation  of  men, 
like  the  commerce  of  books,  like  all  and  every  study, 
in  short,  should  be  but  a  school  for  judgment,  and 
for  moral  judgment  in  the  first  place. 

Montaigne,  although  so  thoroughly  conversant 
with  Latin  that  the  Latinist  Muret  "feared  to  tackle 
him,"  was  one  of  the  first  to  shake  off  the  yoke  of 
Latinism:  "  Greek  and  Latin  are  very  fine  things, 
no  doubt,  but  we  pay  too  dearly  for  their  acquisi- 
tion. ..."  We  know  how  he  had  himself  learned 
the  Latin  tongue.  "  Before  the  first  unloosening  of 
his  tongue,"  he  had  been  intrusted  by  his  father  to 
masters  who  spoke  only  Latin  to  him.  The  castle  of 
Montaigne  had  become,  so  to  speak,  a  small  village 
university;  and  also  a  school  of  music,  since  musi- 


88  MONTAIGNE 

cians  were  intrusted  with  the  duty  of  preparing 
every  morning  a  pleasant  awakening  for  the  child. 
Parents,  valets,  chambermaids  even,  every  one 
around  him  jabbered  in  Latin.  At  six  years  of  age 
he  knew  not  a  word  of  French,  nor  of  the  Perigord 
dialect.  Is  this  method,  which  had  made  Latin 
Montaigne's  mother  tongue,  the  right  one?  Mon- 
taigne himself  does  not  think  so.  On  this  point  he 
does  not  allow  the  recollection  of  his  own  education 
to  influence  him;  nay,  perhaps  his  personal  ex- 
perience had  taught  him  the  drawbacks  of  the  sys- 
tem, more  ingenious  than  wise,  which  his  father  had 
imagined.  At  all  events,  he  declares  most  emphati- 
cally that  Latin  should  only  be  learned  after  French, 
and  even  after  "modern"  languages.  "I  should 
like,  in  the  first  place,  to  be  thoroughly  conversant 
with  my  own  language  and  that  of  my  neighbours." 

The  dead  languages  are  therefore  relegated  to  a 
secondary  position.  Hitherto,  they  have  taken 
up  too  much  time,  and  been  studied  too  mechani- 
cally. Their  study  should  be  simplified  and  made 
easier,  with  a  minimum  of  grammar.  Montaigne 
had  no  love  for  grammarians.  It  was  his  boast  that 
he  himself  had  learned  languages  only  by  practice, 
without  knowing  the  rules.  "I  know  not  what  is 
meant  by  adjective,  conjunctive,  or  ablative.  .  .  ." 

This  lofty  contempt  for  grammar  was  allowable 


MONTAIGNE  89 

in  a  great  writer,  who  created  his  own  language. 
But  the  liberties  which  he  takes,  and  to  which  he 
partly  owes  much  that  is  natural  or  novel  in  his 
language,  can  evidently  not  be  put  before  common 
men  as  models  for  imitation.  His  rhetoric  is  that 
of  nature.  Art  and  especially  artifice  are  rigidly 
proscribed.  Montaigne  cares  nothing  for  order  and 
composition  in  his  discourse.  "Whether  it  come 
early  or  late,  a  useful  maxim,  a  fine  example,  is 
always  seasonable."  Self-complacent  with  regard 
to  his  own  faults,  he  ingenuously  erects  into  rules 
the  disorderly  habits  of  his  own  thought.  In  his 
considerations  on  the  qualities  of  style,  it  is  a  por- 
trait which  he  draws,  the  portrait  of  his  own 
peculiar  style,  rather  than  an  ideal  model  that  could 
be  recommended  to  all.  He  desiderates  "a  simple, 
artless,  and  unaffected  speech";  very  good;  but 
he  does  not  hesitate  to  add  that  he  likes  it  "un- 
ruly and  desultory" ;  and  in  this  he  really  agrees  too 
heartily  with  his  own  peculiarities. 

Montaigne  gave  health  the  first  place  among 
earthly  blessings:  "Health  is  a  precious  thing, 
and  the  only  one  which  deserves  that  life  should  be 
given  up  to  its  pursuit."  How  could  he  have  failed 
to  recognize  the  importance  of  physical  education? 
Hygiene  already  occupies  his  thoughts.  Pie  laments 
that  modern  peoples  have  lost  the  habit  of ' '  washing 


90  MONTAIGNE 

their  bodies  daily,"  a  custom  which  was  formerly 
universally  observed.  In  these  matters,  Montaigne 
likes  to  quote  as  an  example  his  father,  of  whom 
he  says  that  "  there  hardly  ever  was  a  man  of  his 
condition  to  equal  him  in  all  bodily  exercises." 
Endowed  with  rare  muscular  strength,  the  older 
Montaigne  seems  to  have  indulged  in  parlour  acro- 
batics, and  could  "go  round  his  table  on  his  thumb." 
It  is  true  that  his  son  had  not  inherited  his  physical 
strength.  He  was  a  "very  fair  runner,"  but  con- 
fesses his  unfitness  for  other  bodily  exercises.  He 
could  neither  swim  nor  fence,  at  a  time  when  his  con- 
temporaries went  in  crowds  to  learn  fencing  in  Italy, 
where  his  own  brother  fought  a  duel.  He  could 
"hardly  dance."  He  complains  of  his  clumsy  and 
"benumbed"  hands.  On  the  other  hand,  he  was 
an  excellent  horseman.  He  could  spend  fifteen 
hours  in  the  saddle  without  fatigue.  His  journey 
in  Italy  was  a  long  ride  on  horseback.  If  Venice 
did  not  appeal  to  him,  it  was  perhaps  because  in  the 
town  of  gondolas  "there  is  not  a  single  horse." 
"Ideas,"  he  says,  "come  to  me  at  table,  but  es- 
pecially on  horseback."  And  he  goes  the  length  of 
saying,  "I  would  rather  be  a  good  horseman  than  a 
good  logician." 

Montaigne  was  too  thoroughly  impressed  with  the 
fact  that  the  physical  and  the  moral  being  are  closely 


MONTAIGNE  91 

bound  up  in  each  other,  to  neglect  the  education  of 
the  body. 

"The  body  has  a  large  share  in  our  being.  .  .  . 
Those  who  would  separate  our  two  principal  com- 
ponents and  hold  them  apart,  are  wrong:  on  the 
contrary,  they  should  be  coupled  and  joined  together ; 
we  should  order  our  soul,  not  to  stand  aloof  and 
despise  the  body,  but  to  rally  to  it,  to  embrace  it, 
cherish  it,  assist  it,  control  it,  advise  it,  to  take  it 
for  a  mate,  in  short,  that  their  effects  may  not 
appear  different  and  contradictory,  but  uniformly 
agree.  .  .  ." 

Without  indulging,  like  Rabelais'  pupil,  in  an  orgy 
of  gymnastics,  Montaigne's  pupil  will  know  that  to 
fortify  his  soul,  he  must  begin  by  "  stiffening  his 
muscles."  He  will  practise  running,  wrestling, 
dancing,  hunting,  learn  to  handle  horses  and  weapons. 
He  will  expose  himself  to  cold,  to  heat;  will  laugh 
at  the  precepts  of  medicine;  he  will  inure  himself 
to  hardships,  as  the  pupil  of  Locke  will  do  later; 
he  will  harden  himself  against  fatigue  and  pain. 
11  It  is  not  a  body  nor  a  soul  that  you  are  training,  but 
a  man."  That  is  one  of  Montaigne's  reasons  for  ob- 
jecting to  domestic  education:  a  child  who  is  kept 
on  his  mother's  lap  grows  up  soft  and  effeminate. 
The  soul  must  not  be  obliged  to  groan  and  labour 
in  the  company  of  too  tender  and  sensitive  a  body. 


92  MONTAIGNE 

The  child  must  be  brought  up  roughly,  and  exposed 
to  danger;  and  Montaigne,  carried  beyond  all 
bounds  by  his  theory,  goes  the  length  of  authorizing, 
nay,  encouraging  in  the  young  man  excesses  of 
every  kind.  "Even  in  debauchery  I  would  have 
him  outdo  his  companions."  Better  inspired,  he  will 
say  elsewhere :  ' '  Let  him  be  able  to  do  all  things,  but 
let  him  love  to  do  only  what  is  good." 

Montaigne  said:  "Even  though  I  could  make 
myself  feared,  I  would  rather  make  myself  loved." 
This  is  the  feeling  which  inspires  him  in  his  ideas 
on  scholastic  discipline.  Here,  again,  he  takes  up 
vigorously  the  fight  begun  by  Rabelais.  He  attacks 
and  denounces  the  severe  and  brutal  government  of 
the  colleges  of  his  time,  that  which  he  underwent 
at  the  "College  de  Guyenne,"  a  government  made  up 
of  violence  and  tyranny,  of  horror  and  cruelty.  He 
prohibits  any  severity  in  the  education  of  a  free 
soul.  He  mocks  at  masters  who  lose  their  temper 
with  their  pupils,  after  the  manner  of  those  "who 
shout  before  the  culprit  has  come  into  their  presence, 
and  go  on  shouting  for  an  eternity  after  he  has 
withdrawn."  He  complains  that  in  the  bosom  of 
the  family  children  are  punished  too  severely  for 
"innocent  mistakes";  that  they  are  tormented  out 
of  season  for  "bold  acts,"  for  faults  without  con- 
sequence. The  only  failings  which  he  insists  must 


MONTAIGNE  93 

be  energetically  repressed  are  lying  and  stubborn- 
ness." In  public  education,  without  inclining 
toward  excessive  indulgence,  he  wishes  a  "mild 
severity"  to  be  the  watchword  of  school  discipline. 
He  would  do  away  with  corporal  punishment :  - 

"I  have  never  seen  the  birch  have  any  other  effect 
but  to  make  souls  more  craven  and  more  maliciously 
stubborn." 

He  dreams  of  educational  establishments,  where 
"Gladness  and  the  tGraces"  would  be  painted  on  the 
walls  to  cheer  the  children;  where  joy  would  reign 
as  a  reality  in  the  class-room ;  where  "  dancing,  games, 
leaping,  and  summersaults"  would  alternate  with 
studies,  attractive  withal,  and  pursued  without  con- 
straint. Less  work,  the  whip  abolished,  pleasant 
lessons,  in  which  the  master  invites  his  pupils  to 
voluntary  and  easy  efforts,  violence  and  rough  han- 
dling done  away  with;  such  cheerful  and  gentle 
discipline  is  the  ideal  which  Montaigne  wishes  to  see 
applied  to  the  education  "of  those  delicate  and 
tender  souls  which  we  have  to  train  toward  honour 
and  liberty." 

Montaigne  entertained  no  very  flattering  opinion 
of  the  nature  of  women,  "of  their  ill-regulated  mind, 
their  morbid  tastes,  and  their  inherent  weakness," 
so  we  cannot  expect  from  him  any  broad-minded  or 
lofty  conception  of  feminine  education.  He  criti- 


94  MONTAIGNE 

cises  the  "Armandes,"  or  blue-stockings  of  his  time, 
but  cannot  even  conceive  the  ideal  of  an  "Hen- 
riette"  with  an  "enlightened  mind"  on  all  subjects.1 
He  scoffs  at  those  of  his  fair  contemporaries  who  lay 
claim  to  wit  and  erudition:  "They  quote  Plato  and 
St.  Thomas  in  matters  wherein  the  testimony  of  the 
man  in  the  street  would  avail  as  much."  Is  not  this 
what  he  did  himself,  in  his  constant  quotations? 
Rhetoric,  logic,  science  in  general,  are  to  them  "use- 
less drugs."  Rhetoric  would  serve  them  only  "to 
hide  their  fairness  under  beauties  that  are  foreign 
to  them."  In  the  concessions  he  makes  regarding 
the  studies  he  is  willing  to  allow  them,  there  enters 
nearly  as  much  contempt  as  in  the  prohibitions 
which  he  puts  on  them. 

"If,  however,  they  cannot  brook  being  obliged  to 
yield  the  palm  to  us  in  any  respect,  if  they  are  curious 
of  books  and  literature,  poetry  is  a  pastime  fitted  to 
their  needs ;  it  is  a  gay  and  subtle  art,  a  many-worded 
and  dissembling  art,  entirely  made  up  of  pleasure, 
and  as  showy  as  women  themselves.  ..." 

He  will  allow  women  some  knowledge  of  history 
and  of  moral  philosophy,  but  assigns  a  narrow  aim 
to  these  studies,  and  a  practical  bearing  on  their 
conduct. 

1  The  references  are  to  characters  in  Moliere's  "  Les  Femmes 
Savantes."  (Translator's  note.) 


MONTAIGNE  95 

"They  will  draw  from  these  studies  various  useful 
lessons :  they  will  learn  to  spin  out  the  pleasures  of 
life,  arid  to  bear  with  human  fortitude  the  inconstancy 
of  a  servant,  the  rough  bearing  of  a  husband,  and 
the  importunity  of  years  and  of  wrinkles.  ..." 

In  short,  woman  shall  study  —  if  study  she  must, 
-  what  is  necessary  to  teach  her  patience,  resigna- 
tion, and  obedience.  Of  her  general  culture  and  per- 
sonal development  Montaigne  says  not  a  word. 
He  is  of  those  who  would  pay  their  court  to  woman 
by  maintaining  her  in  ignorance,  lest  learning  should 
be  prejudicial  to  her  natural  charms.  On  this  point, 
indeed,  he  quotes  the  authority  of  the  Church  in 
support  of  his  mean  and  shabby  views:  "Neither 
we  nor  theology  require  much  science  in  women." 
Yet  Montaigne  ought  to  have  understood  the  neces- 
sity for  a  strong  and  serious  feminine  education, 
since  he  was  conscious  of  the  drawbacks  and  dangers 
of  the  frivolous  training  which  was  then  in  fashion : 

"We  bring  up  girls  from  childhood  so  that  they 
may  be  expert  in  love;  their  graceful  bearing,  their 
adornment,  their  science,  their  speech,  their  whole 
education  is  directed  to  that  one  end.  .  .  ." 

What  Montaigne  lacked  above  all  things  to  be  a 
true  educator  was  a  love  for  childhood.  He  was 
too  fond  of  peace  to  enjoy  the  company  of  children, 
even  of  his  own.  "I  could  not  brook  having  them 


96  MONTAIGNE 

reared  near  me."  He  would  easily  have  done  with- 
out offspring. 

"Children  are  among  the  things  which  are  in  no 
wise  very  desirable,  particularly  at  this  time  when  it 
would  be  so  difficult  to  make  them  good.  .  .  ." 

If  he  barricaded  himself,  so  to  speak,  in  his  library, 
in  order  to  avoid  the  society  of  men  and  to  live  with 
himself,  how  could  he  have  opened  the  gates  of  his 
ivory  tower  to  the  noisy  and  uncomfortable  turbu- 
lence of  children?  He  did  not  understand  their 
charm,  blind  as  he  was  to  the  graces  and  pretty 
ways  of  those  frail  creatures,  as  they  come  into  being, 
though  one  of  our  contemporaries  has  said:  "What 
glimpses  of  Paradise  are  left  to  us  on  earth  are  due 
to  the  presence  of  children."  Montaigne,  on  the 
contrary,  waves  them  roughly  out  of  his  sight,  unable 
to  understand  "the  passion  with  which  people  kiss 
and  fondle  children  hardly  born,"  unable  to  find 
either  in  their  souls  or  in  their  bodies  "anything 
that  renders  them  amiable." 

He  will  not  allow  a  mother  to  suckle  her  own  child ; 
he  will  not  even  have  a  foster-mother  in  the  house. 
Reared  himself  in  a  village,  and  in  mercenary  hands, 
he  is  determined  that  his  daughters  also  shall  spend 
their  early  years  far  from  their  parents. 

Montaigne,  it  must  be  confessed,  was  but  little 
acquainted  with  that  laborious  virtue  which  curbs 


MONTAIGNE  97 

our  humours  under  the  yoke  of  duty,  which  makes 
us  watch  overnight,  and  slave  by  day,  in  the  service 
of  those  whom  we  love;  tasks  which  become  easy 
for  the  very  reason  that  we  love  them.  It  is  only 
when  the  child  has  grown  that  he  consents  to  admit 
him  to  his  society :  - 

"I  would  not  avoid  the  company  of  my  children. 
I  should  wish  to  act  as  their  close  adviser,  and  to 
enjoy  the  sight  of  their  merriment  and  holiday- 
making.  I  should  endeavour,  by  pleasant  conversa- 
tion, to  foster  in  my  children  a  lively  and  unfeigned 
affection  for  me.  .  .  .  That  father  is  greatly  to 
be  pitied  whose  only  hold  on  his  children's  affection 
is  the  need  which  they  have  of  his  help.  .  .  .  We 
must  win  respect  through  virtue,  and  love  through 
kindness.  ..." 

With  young  men,  therefore,  Montaigne  becomes 
an  affectionate  father,  because  he  finds  pleasure  in 
their  society.  Had  he  been  blessed  with  any  sons, 
he  would,  he  says,  have  treated  them  kindly  when 
their  twentieth  year  drew  nigh;  he  would  have 
initiated  them  early  to  the  family  affairs,  he  wrould 
have  dispossessed  himself  in  their  favour  of  a  part  of 
his  estates,  without  waiting  for  the  hour  of  testa- 
ments and  death. 

Montaigne  does  not  seem  to  have  had  much  feeling 
for  the  beauties  of  nature.  He  looks  with  more 


98  MONTAIGNE 

admiration  on  the  fair  Italian  women  whom  he  sees 
in  the  streets  in  Florence,  and  at  the  windows  in 
Rome,  than  on  the  great  Alpine  landscapes  of  the 
Tyrol  mountain  passes.  In  any  case,  he  prefers 
a  pretty  countryside  to  the  awe-inspiring  aspects  of 
rugged  nature.  After  he  has  "made  a  plunge" 
into  the  Alps,  he  is  delighted  to  find  himself  once 
more  on  the  pleasant  banks  of  the  Adige,  "when  the 
mountains  have  lowered  their  horns  a  little."  Just 
as  among  men  he  prefers  those  of  a  "temperate  and 
average  character,"  thus  also  in  nature  he  prefers 
hills  of  moderate  height,  graceful  sites,  the  "pleas- 
ant little  meadows  within  the  valleys."  He  ad- 
mires the  torrents  of  the  Apennines  especially  when, 
"having  lost  their  first  fury,  they  become  in  the 
vales  peaceful  and  gentle  streamlets."  Amidst 
high  mountains,  he  likes  best  their  green  slopes  with 
tilled  fields,  and  villages  nestling  within  their  folds; 
and  this  sight  suggests  to  him  a  most  ingenious 
simile :  — 

"The  ridges  of  the  Tyrol  mountains  resemble 
a  gown  which  one  only  sees  crumpled  up,  but  which, 
unfolded  and  stretched  out  flat,  would  form  a  great 
country,  if  all  these  mountains  were  under  cultiva- 
tion and  inhabited.  ..." 

He  is  also  pleased  to  find  among  these  mountains 
"pleasant  and  comfortable  roads,"  along  which  one 


MONTAIGNE  99 

may  ride  at  ease;  "so  much  so,"  he  says,  "that  if 
he  had  to  escort  his  daughter  on  her  walks  (Leonor 
was  then  eight  years  old),  he  would  as  lief  do  so  on 
these  roads  as  in  an  avenue  of  his  gardens  at  Mon- 
taigne," -  a  passing  thought  given  to  his  family 
which  we  note  with  pleasure  in  a  somewhat  neg- 
lectful father. 

Neither  is  a  feeling  for  art  at  all  prominent  in 
Montaigne.  Even  while  travelling  in  Italy,  he  hardly 
seems  to  have  felt  the  breath  of  the  artistic  Renais- 
sance passing  over  his  head.  In  vain  had  Michael 
Angelo  and  Raphael  adorned  the  Eternal  City  with 
the  novelty  of  their  works.  Montaigne  passed  on 
negligently  without  noticing  them.  And  when,  in 
an  eloquent  page  of  his  Diary,  he  speaks  of  Rome, 
it  is  ancient  Rome,  the  memories  of  the  past,  which 
he  alone  calls  up :  - 

"He  said  that  of  Rome  nothing  was  to  be  seen 
but  the  heavens  under  which  it  had  been  seated,  and 
the  outlines  of  the  spot  where  it  had  lain;  that  this 
science  which  he  had  of  ancient  Rome  was  an  ab- 
stract and  contemplative  science,  nothing  of  which 
came  under  the  senses;  that  those  who  said  that  at 
least  the  ruins  of  Rome  were  to  be  seen,  asserted 
too  much ;  for  the  ruins  of  so  awesome  a  handiwork 
would  bring  more  honour  and  reverence  to  its  mem- 
ory; this,  he  said,  was  naught  but  the  sepulchre 


100  MONTAIGNE 

of  Rome.  The  world,  rising  against  her  long  domi- 
nation, had  first  broken  and  shattered  every  piece 
of  that  admirable  body,  and  because,  although 
dead,  overthrown  and  disfigured,  it  was  still  awe- 
inspiring,  they  had  buried  its  very  ruins.  What- 
ever slight  tokens  of  the  ruin  of  Rome  still  appear 
above  her  bier,  had  been  preserved,  he  said,  by  fate  as 
a  testimony  to  that  infinite  greatness  which  so  many 
centuries,  so  many  conflagrations,  and  the  oft-re- 
peated coalitions  of  the  world  to  compass  its  ruin, 
had  been  unable  to  extinguish  at  all  points.  ..." 

Little  touched  by  the  embellishments  of  the  new 
Rome,  he  said :  — 

"The  buildings  of  this  bastard  Rome,  which  are 
now  being  fastened  on  these  ruins,  put  me  in  mind 
of  the  nests  which  the  sparrows  and  daws  attach 
in  France  to  the  vaults  of  the  churches  which  the 
Huguenots  have  just  been  wrecking." 

Fine  arts,  plastic  arts,  therefore  left  Montaigne 
more  or  less  indifferent.  In  Rome,  however,  the 
statues  attract  his  attention;  and  he  enumerates 
those  which  he  admired  most  in  the  palace  of  the 
Cardinal  of  Ferrara.  But  he  has  hardly  anything 
to  say  on  the  paintings;  and  what  he  does  say  be- 
trays singular  prejudices,  since  he  will  not  even  allow 
that  painting  is  in  the  least  capable  of  representing 
nature :  — 


MONTAIGNE  101 

"All  our  efforts  cannot  even  succeed  in  picturing 
the  nest  of  a  little  bird,  with  its  texture  and  beauty, 
nor  even  the  web  of  a  puny  spider.  ..." 

Let  us  note,  however,  a  theory  which  is  of  interest 
in  art,  and  which,  although  expressed  in  a  couple 
of  lines,  is  pregnant  with  consequences:  "I  would 
naturalize  art,"  -  and  he  added,  coining  a  word 
which  neither  lived  nor  deserved  to  live:  "instead 
of  artialising  nature."  -  Montaigne  thus  associated 
himself  with  the  movement  which,  during  the  last 
centuries  of  the  Middle  Ages,  had  already  carried 
architects,  cathedral  sculptors,  and  miniature  paint- 
ers beyond  artistic  stagnation  and  traditional  con- 
ventionality, and  had  led  them  to  inaugurate  a  new 
art  by  introducing  movement  and  life  into  it  through 
the  imitation  of  nature.  Let  us  note  also  that 
Montaigne  would  have  approved  of  the  effort  which 
is  being  made  at  the  present  time  to  provide  schools 
and  class-rooms  with  a  cheerful  and  artistic  setting, 
which  surrounds  the  child  with  an  atmosphere  of 
beauty.  He  asked  that  the  class-rooms  should  be 
strewn  with  flowers.  He  wished  to  see  the  walls 
adorned  with  the  pictures  of  "Gladness  and  Joy, 
of  Flora  and  the  Graces." 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  lacunae  in  Mon- 
taigne's mind,  he  came  very  near  being  a  complete 
man.  His  pedagogy  is  open  to  nature  and  to  life, 
as  he  wished  works  of  art  to  be.  It  is  at  fault,  how- 


102  MONTAIGNE 

ever,  in  that  it  remains  rather  superficial,  easy-going, 
and  slight.  Montaigne  is  a  thinker  and  a  writer  of 
genius,  and  men  of  genius  are  perhaps  not  best 
fitted  to  become  educators.  Everything  is  easy 
to  them :  the  resources  of  their  rich  nature  dispense 
them  from  effort;  hence  they  do  not  think  of  re- 
quiring it  in  others.  They  forget  that  the  common 
herd  of  men  do  not  enjoy  the  same  faculties.  Hav- 
ing reached  without  labour  and  without  trouble  the 
highest  peaks  of  intellectual  and  moral  life,  they 
do  not  take  into  consideration  that,  even  to  rise 
midway  to  these  heights,  those  who  labour  in  the 
valley  require  a  more  intensive  education  and  a 
harder  discipline.1 

Montaigne  is  none  the  less  a  wise  counsellor,  whose 
lessons  will  always  be  profitable.  Between  Eras- 
mus, the  erudite  humanist,  exclusively  in  love  with 
belles-lettres,  and  Rabelais,  the  bold  dreamer,  who 
seems  intent  on  cramming  the  wrhole  encyclopaedia 
of  human  knowledge  into  the  brain  of  his  disciple,  — 
who  was  a  giant,  it  is  true,  —  at  the  risk  of  causing 
it  to  burst,  Montaigne  occupies  an  intermediate 
place,  with  his  circumspect  and  moderate  tendencies, 
averse  to  any  excess. 

1  "Are  we  not  all  sons  of  Montaigne,"  said  Felix  Pecaut,  who 
complained  of  it,  "sons  of  Montaigne  by  the  absolute  freedom 
of  our  minds,  but  also  by  our  disposition  to  look  with  indifference 
on  the  most  various  opinions?"  (Revue  pgdagogique,  1888, 
Vol.  I,  p.  216.) 


MONTAIGNE  103 

The  child  who  has  followed  Montaigne's  lessons 
will  be  above  all  clear-minded;  he  will  possess  a 
solid  and  acute  judgment,  a  prudent  and  upright 
character.  He  will  have  tasted,  like  his  master, 
"only  the  outer  crust  of  science."  But  he  will 
have  surveyed  the  whole  field  of  knowledge,  lightly, 
"&  fa  fransaise"  ;  this  expression  is  indeed  surpris- 
ing from  the  pen  of  a  sixteenth-century  writer,  at 
the  close  of  the  Middle  Ages,  whose  logicians,  truly, 
in  no  way  announced  the  amiable  lightness  of  mind 
of  the  French  people.  He  will  be  a  man  devoted 
to  duty,  or  at  least  a  man  of  honour.  Although  averse 
to  vain  ceremony,  he  will  show  himself  on  all  occa- 
sions polite  and  civil,  prodigal  of  salutations,  ever 
ready  to  " raise  his  bonnet";  especially  in  summer, 
because  there  is  less  risk  of  catching  a  cold  in  that 
season.  .  .  .  More  important  still,  he  will  be  a 
mild  and  tolerant  man,  independent  in  his  ideas  and 
straightforward  in  his  speech.  "Lying  is  the  worst 
of  faults."  What  he  may  lack,  a  little,  will  be  the 
qualities  of  the  heart.  If  Montaigne  is  silent  with 
regard  to  the  qualities  of  the  heart,  we  are  far  from 
thinking  with  Guizot  that  this  redounds  to  his  honour. 
He  will  also  lack  a  taste  for  action ;  and  lastly,  what 
Rabelais  and  the  men  of  the  Renaissance  for  the 
most  part  possessed  to  the  highest  degree:  faith 
in  science,  enthusiasm,  and  confidence  in  the  future. 


Ill 

MONTAIGNE'S  INFLUENCE 

U!F  we  believe  everything  that  Montaigne  advises, 
and  do  all  that  he  recommends,  we  may  need  to  add 
thereto,  and  to  take  the  pupil  somewhat  further  than 
he  did :  but  we  must  pass  by  the  road  which  he  took ; 
if  he  did  not  say  all,  all  that  he  did  say  is  true,  and 
before  we  may  pretend  to  outstrip  him,  we  must 
endeavour  to  overtake  'him."  Thus  spoke  Guizot 
in  1812,  not  without  some  exaggeration,  in  the 
Annales  de  I'Education.1  Indeed,  long  before  the 
nineteenth  century,  many  of  Montaigne's  pedagogic 
views  were  fully  appreciated,  and  taken  as  sources 
of  inspiration.  Locke,  Rousseau,  borrowed  largely 
from  him.  The  Solitaires,  or  recluses  of  Port-Royal, 
in  their  Logic,  put  him  under  contribution,  though 
they  omitted  any  acknowledgment  or  thanks. 
Montaigne  is  really  the  chief  of  a  school,  as  an  Eng- 
lish writer,  Herbert  Quick,  proclaims  in  his  Educa- 
tional Reformers,  where  he  declares  that  the  author 

1  Montaigne's  Ideas  on  Education,  an  article  that  has  often 
been  reprinted,  and  particularly  in  Conseils  d'un  Pere  sur  I'Edu- 
cation, Paris,  1883. 

104 


MONTAIGNE  105 

of  the  Essays  founded,  in  the  field  of  pedagogy,  a 
school  of  thinkers,  the  principal  adherents  to  which, 
in  later  times,  were  Locke  and  Rousseau.1  In  Ger- 
many, several  editions  of  Montaigne's  pedagogical 
Essays  have  been  published.2  On  all  sides,  due 
homage  has  been  rendered  to  the  merit  of  a  pedagogy 
made  up  of  good  sense  and  wisdom,  which  paved  the 
way  for  a  more  liberal  and  a  broader  education. 
Without  aspiring  to  it,  Montaigne  has  become  one 
of  the  masters  of  human  thought. 

It  is  true  that  it  is  his  work  taken  as  a  whole,  even 
more  than  his  short  pedagogical  sketch,  which  calls 
forth  the  almost  unanimous  admiration  of  his  critics. 
Sainte-Beuve,  imagining  posterity  as  escorting  Mon- 
taigne's funeral,  introduces  into  the  procession  the 
most  illustrious  French  writers:  La  Fontaine  and 
Moliere,  Montesquieu  and  J.-J.  Rousseau,  Voltaire 
also,  and  many  others.  Did  not  Mme.  de  Sevigne 
exclaim:  "Ah!  what  an  amiable  man!  And  how 
full  of  good  sense  his  book  is !" 

To  this  throng  of  admirers  must  be  added  a  num- 
ber of  foreign  thinkers.  Thus  the  American  writer 
Emerson  gives  him  a  place  in  his  gallery  of  Represen- 

1  Educational  Reformers,  latest  edition,   Cincinnati,   1883. 

2  For  instance,  the  edition  of  E.  Schmidt  in  the  Library  of 
Pedagogical    Classics,    Langensalza,  1876.     Cf.    also    the    editions 
of  Karl  Reimer  (1872),  of  Schippard  (1880),  and  the  study  on 
Montaigne  by  Wittslock   (1874). 


106  MONTAIGNE 

tative  Men.1  Beside  Plato,  "the  Philosopher," 
and  Shakespeare,  "the  Poet,"  Montaigne  is  pictured 
as  "the  Sceptic";  and  Emerson  wreathes  him  with 
flowers:  "I  remember  the  delight  and  wonder  in 
which  I  lived  with  it"  (i.e.  an  odd  volume  of 
Cotton's  translation  of  the  Essays). 

Beside  Emerson  we  must  place  Byron,  of  whom 
it  was  said  2  that  Montaigne  was  the  only  great  writer 
of  past  times  whom  he  read  with  avowed  satisfac- 
tion. 

An  even  more  unexpected  testimony  is  that  of 
Nietzsche,  who,  in  that  period  of  his  intellectual 
evolution  when  he  conceived  a  taste  for  the  clear- 
ness of  thought  of  French  literature,  celebrated 
the  "charming  loquacity"  of  Montaigne.3 

People  have  not  been  content  to  read  and  admire 
Montaigne ;  they  have  taken  up  his  thoughts,  copied 
them,  and  developed  them. 

It  was  not  Pascal,  but  Montaigne,  who  wrote: 
"He  who  imagines,  as  in  a  painting,  this  great  picture 
of  Mother  Nature  in  her  full  majesty,  and  who,  in 
this  picture,  looks  upon  himself,  and  not  upon  himself 
alone,  but  upon  a  whole  kingdom,  as  a  small  stroke 

1  Translated   into    French  by   M.    Izoulet,   under  the   title  of 
Les   Surhumains.     Montaigne   is   not  superhuman,  as  M.    Izoulet 
would  have  it,  but  he  is  a  thoroughly  representative  man. 

2  By  Leigh  Hunt,  quoted  by  Emerson.     (Translator's  note.) 

3  Cf .  E.  Faguet's  recent  book:    En  Usant  Nietzsche. 


MONTAIGNE  107 

made  with  a  very  fine  point,  that  one  alone  judges 
of  things  in  their  right  proportions.  .  .  ." 

It  was  not  Descartes,  but  again  Montaigne,  who 
said:  "That  you  can  put  nothing  into  a  pupil's 
head  simply  by  quoting  some  authority,  and  so  to 
speak  on  credit  ...  ;"  or  again :- 

"When  the  Pyrrhonians  affirm  their  doubt,  we 
immediately  take  them  by  the  throat  to  force  them 
to  confess  that  this  much  at  least  they  know:  that 
they  doubt." 

It  was  not  Rousseau,  but  Montaigne  again,  who 
declared  that  "to  refine  the  mind  is  not  to  make  it 
wiser,"  and  elsewhere:  - 

"The  study  of  science  weakens  our  courage  and 
renders  it  effeminate,  far  more  than  it  strengthens  it 
and  inures  it  to  war."  — "I  think  Rome  fought 
better  before  she  grew  learned." 

And  likewise,  do  we  not  think  we  are  listening 
to  Fenelon,  when  we  read  in  the  Essays :  "Education 
should  be  conducted  with  a  gentle  severity"?  —  or 
again,  to  Locke,  in  such  a  passage  as  this:  "Harden 
the  child  against  perspiration  and  cold,  against  the 
wind,  the  sun,  and  the  dangers  which  he  ought  to 
look  down  upon." 

One  single  work  sufficed  to  acquire  for  Montaigne 
immortal  renown.  In  that  extraordinary  success, 
we  must  assuredly  ascribe  a  share  to  the  delightful 


108  MONTAIGNE 

style.  Never  did  a  man  speak  a  language  that  was 
so  new,  so  savoury,  so  supple  and  rich,  very  French 
withal,  with  a  spice  of  the  Gascon  idiom.  Mon- 
taigne is  one  of  the  creators  of  the  French  language. 
How  many  new  words  he  coined,  a  number  of  which 
have  survived !  Picturesque  expressions  flow  in  an 
endless  stream  under  his  pen.  Metaphors  abound, 
metaphors  that  are  new,  rather  than  those  "whose 
beauty  has  taken  on  the  wrinkles  of  age."  Nearly 
always  the  concrete  image  takes  the  place  of  the  ab- 
straction. "Cut  these  words,"  said  Emerson,  "and 
they  would  bleed;  they  are  vascular  and  alive." 
Moreover,  in  the  fresh  novelty  of  that  flowery 
language  which  blooms  in  full  liberty,  the  boldness 
of  the  construction,  the  contempt  for  syntax,  con- 
tribute to  the  seduction  of  a  style  both  picturesque 
and  poetical.  Did  not  Montesquieu,  who  believed 
that  even  in  prose,  we  can  be  a  poet,  put  Montaigne 
among  "the  four  great  poets,"  with  Plato,  Male- 
branche,  and  Shaftesbury?  The  lack  of  order  and 
arrangement,  the  desultoriness  even  of  a  thought 
which  proceeds  at  random,  without  obeying  any 
regular  plan,  are  not  without  their  attractiveness. 
Montaigne  was  no  lover  of  continuous  discourse: 
"I  pause  often  for  lack  of  breath."  "A  glimpse  of 
a  tuft  of  fur  "  crossing  his  path  was  enough  to  lead 
him  off  on  a  charming  digression  from  his  main 


MONTAIGNE  109 

theme.  The  Essays  resemble  a  collection  of  "news 
paragraphs,"  written  by  a  journalist  of  great  talent, 
at  a  time  when  journalism  was  non-existent.  So 
that  one  should  not  attempt  to  read  the  Essays 
from  end  to  end,  as  one  reads  a  book  of  continuous 
and  methodical  doctrine.  To  enjoy  all  their  charm 
and  admire  them  unreservedly,  one  should  read  them 
in  fragments,  day  by  day,  as  they  were  written. 
They  should  be  taken  in  small  sips,  so  to  speak. 
We  can  then  enjoy  to  the  full  the  "flow  of  gossip" 
of  the  wittiest  of  talkers;  and  appreciate  the  sim- 
plicity, the  familiarity  of  conversation,  of  a  writer 
who  "talks  to  his  paper  as  he  would  talk  to  any  one," 
and  of  whom  it  was  also  Montesquieu  who  said, 
"In  most  authors,  I  see  the  author  who  writes;  in 
Montaigne  I  see  a  man  who  thinks." 

Original  in  his  style,  Montaigne  is  no  less  so  in 
his  ideas.  I  know,  and  he  in  no  wise  concealed,  that 
he  owes  much  to  the  writers  of  antiquity.  "My 
book  is  a  bunch  of  flowers  for  which  I  have  provided 
only  the  thread."  He  often  struts  in  borrowed 
feathers,  and  he  used  to  say,  ' '  I  wish  some  one  would 
pluck  the  feathers  off  me,"  thus  hinting  that,  if  he 
were  once  stripped  of  all  he  had  borrowed,  there 
would  remain  little  or  nothing  of  the  Essays.  There 
would  remain  all  the  fine  embroidery  which  an  im- 
pulsive imagination  worked  on  to  the  rough  ground 


110  MONTAIGNE 

of  other  people's  thoughts,  without  reckoning  all 
the  new  ideas  that  belong  to  him  alone.  Through 
all  his  reminiscences  and  his  overflow  of  quotations 
from  the  poets,  historians,  and  philosophers  of  Greece 
and  Rome,  there  blows  a  modern  spirit,  and  Mon- 
taigne's personality  stands  out  on  every  page.  He 
claimed  his  share  of  originality  when  he  said  that 
he  used  books,  "not  to  shape  his  opinions,  but  to 
assist  and  support  them,  when  once  they  were 
formed." 

"In  the  books  I  read  I  am  ever  on  the  lookout 
for  something  to  pilfer,  that  may  serve  to  jewel  or 
shore  up  my  own." 

If  some  chapters  of  the  Essays,  by  their  titles  at 
least,  are  merely  recollections  of  the  short  moral 
treatises  which  the  philosophers  of  antiquity  have 
left  us,  —  Of  Anger,  Of  Constancy,  Of  Virtue,— 
others  are,  so  to  speak,  the  first  sketches  of  some  of 
the  books  which  have  been  written  within  the  last 
three  centuries  by  the  most  famous  of  our  thinkers 
and  philosophers ;  such  are,  for  instance,  the  essays 
entitled,  Of  Liberty  of  Conscience,  Of  Roman  Great- 
ness. And  is  it  not  a  fact  that  Pascal's  Pensees,  or 
Thoughts,  had  their  origin  in  the  famous  chapter 
entitled  Apology  of  Raymond  Sebond  f  Montaigne 
is,  so  to  speak,  the  middleman  between  ancient 
thought  and  modern  thought.  He  makes  antiquity 


MONTAIGNE  111 

live  again,  and  at  the  same  time,  by  his  novel  and 
bold  views,  he  opens  a  new  era;  and  this,  it  would 
seem,  without  being  conscious  of  it,  for  this  man  of 
progress  does  not  believe  in  progress.  He  is  a 
precursor  without  knowing  it. 

Montaigne  had  little  faith  either  in  the  progress 
of  the  individual  or  in  the  progress  of  society.  At 
the  age  of  twenty,  according  to  him,  a  human  soul 
is  "released  from  its  ties,"  being  already  all  that  it 
is  capable  of  becoming.  In  another  passage,  he 
fixes  the  age  of  thirty  as  a  limit  for  the  evolution 
of  the  individual;  and  he  recalls  the  fact  that  most 
great  men  had  accomplished  their  glorious  actions 
before  that  age.  He  quotes  himself  as  an  example, 
and  says  that  since  his  thirtieth  year,  "his  mind, 
like  his  body,  has  gone  back  rather  than  advanced." 
The  most  that  he  will  concede  is  that  for  those  who 
make  good  use  of  their  time,  "Knowledge  and 
experience  increase  with  life;"  but  sharpness  of 
mind,  promptness  and  firmness  of  judgment, 
"  those  faculties  which  are  far  more  ours,  more  im- 
portant and  more  essential,  fade  and  languish." 

Montaigne  —  untrue  in  this  respect  to  the  spirit 
of  the  Renaissance  —  does  not  believe,  either,  in  the 
collective  progress  of  humanity.  Pie  neither  be- 
lieves in  it,  nor  even  desires  it.  He  would  like 
"to  put  a  peg  into  our  wheel  to  stop  its  motion." 


112  MONTAIGNE 

And  yet  he  prepared  that  progress  in  which  he  had 
no  faith.  His  book  is  full  of  progressive  views  on 
the  most  diverse  matters.  Is  he  not  in  advance 
of  his  time  by  that  spirit  of  tolerance  which  made 
him  condemn  the  fanaticism  of  his  contemporaries? 
It  was  on  the  morrow  of  the  St.  Bartholomew 
massacre  that  he  wrote,  "We  put  a  very  high  value 
on  our  conjectures  when  we  authorize  ourselves  of 
them  to  roast  a  man  alive."  Does  he  not  condemn 
the  rack,  and  death  by  torture,  which  were  still  to 
endure  for  generations?  He  is  a  humanitarian,  in 
that  age  of  savage  cruelty  of  which  La  Noue  could 
say,  "The  French  are  changed  into  tigers;"  and 
Henry  IV,  "  We  are  always  ready  to  cut  each  other's 
throats."  He  has  "a  cruel  hatred  of  cruelty." 
He  waxes  indignant  at  the  abominable  sights  which 
he  has  the  grief  of  witnessing. 

"We  have  seen  neighbours  and  fellow-citizens, 
under  the  cloak  of  piety  and  religion,  torture  and 
tear  to  pieces  a  body  full  of  feeling,  roast  him  on 
a  slow  fire,  and  leave  him  to  be  bitten  and  devoured 
by  dogs  and  swine." 

If  he  does  not  seem  to  suspect  the  future  flights  of 
science,  he  foresees  that  on  some  points  at  least  the 
future  is  destined  to  modify  and  improve  the  present 
state  of  things.  We  have  seen  how  roughly  he 
handled  medicine,  with  the  irritation  of  an  invalid 


MONTAIGNE  113 

whom  doctors  are  unable  to  cure,  even  though  they 
prescribe  for  the  calculus  which  he  suffered  from 
such  fantastic  remedies  as  "  powdered  rat's  drop- 
pings! ..."  And  yet  he  prophesies  that  a  day 
will  come  when  medicine  will  render  real  services 
to  humanity,  the  day  when  each  branch  of  medi- 
cine has  become  specialized,  and  when  there  will  be 
a  competent  doctor  for  each  kind  of  disease. 

Montaigne  does  not  remain  absorbed  in  the  ideal- 
istic meditations  of  philosophical  dilettantism.  He 
is  already  a  practical  man,  with  a  thought  for  useful 
arts,  interested  in  commerce  and  industry.  In 
his  travels,  he  studies  and  compares  the  different 
systems  of  healing,  the  state  of  the  public  fountains. 
He  is  as  anxious  to  understand  the  working  of  a 
hydraulic  machine  as  to  visit  public  libraries,  art 
galleries,  or  churches.  In  the  towns  of  Germany, 
he  notes  that  our  neighbours  "have  got  iron  and  good 
Workmen  in  abundance,  and  that  they  are  far  ahead 
of  us."  France  was  already  outdistanced  by  Ger- 
many. He  inquires  about  the  institutions  which 
may  facilitate  commercial  life;  he  would  like  to 
see  in  every  town  a  central  information  office,  a 
kind  of  labour  exchange. 

The  prejudices  of  a  narrow  patriotism  are  unknown 
to  Montaigne.  The  love  he  bore  to  his  "wretched 
country"  did  not  prevent  him  from  doing  justice 


114  MONTAIGNE 

to  other  nations.  Like  Socrates,  he  might  have  said, 
"I  am  not  a  citizen  of  Athens,  I  am  a  citizen  of  the 
world."  He  sees  with  " infinite  pleasure"  the 
efficient  policing,  the  simple  way  of  living,  and  the 
freedom  of  Switzerland.  He  has  a  better  opinion 
of  the  Italians  than  of  the  French;  he  thinks  " their 
mind  is  more  alert,  their  judgment  sounder."  With 
regard  to  his  fellow-countrymen,  "an  indiscreet 
nation,"  he  criticises,  among  other  failings,  their 
bellicose  temper:  "Put  down  three  Frenchmen 
amid  the  deserts  of  Libya,  they  will  not  remain  for 
a  month  together,  without  molesting  and  scratching 
each  other."  In  his  Diary  of  Travel,  it  is  evident 
that  the  very  favourable  judgments  he  passed  on  the 
nations  he  visited  were  mingled  with  some  little 
contempt  for  his  own  country,  "which  he  hated  so 
that  his  heart  rose  against  it."  But  he  was  enthu- 
siastic with  regard  to  Paris,  which  he  criticised  only 
for  the  rank  smell  of  its  mud,  as  he  did  Venice  for 
that  of  its  marshes.  It  is  quite  a  modern  writer 
who  sings  this  hymn  to  the  glory  of  Paris :  - 

"I  am  never  so  angry  with  France  but  that  I 
look  upon  Paris  with  a  kindly  eye.  Paris  has  pos- 
sessed my  heart  since  my  childhood,  and  like  other 
excellent  things,  has  retained  its  hold  on  me  ever 
since.  The  more  beautiful  towns  I  have  seen  since 
then,  the  more  strongly  the  beauty  of  this  one  has 


MONTAIGNE  115 

established  its  claim  to  my  affection;  I  love  it  for 
itself,  and  more  in  its  own  being  than  when  over- 
laden with  external  pomp ;  I  love  it  tenderly,  even 
in  its  warts  and  blemishes ;  I  am  French  only  through 
this  great  town,  great  by  its  people,  great  by  the 
happiness  of  its  situation,  great  especially  and  be- 
yond compare  by  the  variety  and  diversity  of  its 
conveniences :  it  is  the  glory  of  France  and  one  of 
the  most  noble  ornaments  of  the  world.  God  protect 
it  from  our  quarrels  and  divisions !  .  .  ." 

Even  the  method  of  reasoning  practised  by  Mon- 
taigne is,  in  some  respects,  animated  by  a  spirit 
which  is  new.  In  the  marshalling  of  his  thoughts 
he  is  not  so  wayward  and  devoid  of  order  as  one 
might  think.  Nearly  always,  as  he  proceeds,  he 
founds  himself  on  facts,  —  facts  of  every  kind,  it  is 
true,  which  are  not  all  authentic,  which  he  has  not 
observed  for  himself,  and  the  responsibility  for  which 
he  lays  on  the  shoulders  of  the  writers  from  whom 
he  borrows  them;  but  after  all  it  is  on  facts,  his- 
torical or  not,  which  his  erudition  provides  him  with 
in  plenty,  that  he  founds  his  reflections  and  con- 
clusions. This  is  already  in  a  sense  the  method  of 
Bacon.  Montaigne  does  not  proceed  by  deduction, 
according  to  the  geometrical  method  which  will 
be  that  of  Descartes ;  but  he  observes,  and  proceeds 
by  induction,  before  ever  Bacon  had  advised  this 


116  MONTAIGNE 

course.  The  Essays  have  been  called  the  Preface 
to  the  Instauratio  magna. 

It  is  especially  himself  that  Montaigne  observes, 
and  he  may  be  considered  as  the  inspirer  of  that 
introspective  psychology  which  takes  for  its  aim  the 
analysis  of  self,  and  for  its  means  interior  observa- 
tion ;  that  psychology  which  Was  long  held  in  honour 
by  French  philosophers,  and  which,  in  spite  of  its 
shortcomings,  has  been  of  such  advantage  for  the 
knowledge  of  human  nature.  He  has  analyzed 
most  acutely  the  failings  of  memory.  He  has  spoken 
in  happy  terms  of  the  relation  between  the  soul  and 
the  feelings:  "The  soul  is  touched  very  lightly  and 
so  to  speak  glided  over  by  the  gentle  impressions  of 
the  senses."  Nor  is  he  blind  to  the  difficulties  of 
this  process  of  interior  reflection. 

"It  is,"  he  said,  "a  thorny  undertaking  to  follow 
such  a  vagabond  as  our  mind,  to  reach  the  opaque 
depths  of  its  inner  recesses,  to  select  and  catch  hold 
of  the  light  air- waves  of  its  motions." 

But  he  added,  "If  there  is  no  description  equally 
difficult,  there  is  none  either  that  is  of  such  utility." 
He  devoted  himself  to  it  entirely,  towards  the  end 
of  his  life:  "For  several  years  I  have  had  myself 
only  as  the  object  of  my  thoughts."  To  justify 
himself,  he  quoted  the  example  of  Socrates:  "Is 
there  aught  that  Socrates  deals  with  at  greater  length 


MONTAIGNE  117 

than  with  himself?"  Like  the  Greek  philosopher, 
he  esteemed  other  sciences  as  worthy  of  esteem 
only  "in  the  service  of  life,"  and  therefore  looked 
upon  the  knowledge  of  Self  as  the  most  important 
of  all. 

There  is  scarcely  a  pedagogical  question  on  which 
Montaigne  had  not  a  word  to  say,  a  word  that  hits 
the  mark,  and  is  modern  in  sense. 

The  boarding  system  he  condemns  unhesitatingly : 
"I  will  not  have  this  boy  imprisoned.  ..." 

The  overworking  of  scholars,  which  in  our  days 
has  been  written  about  so  largely,  he  denounces 
severely :  - 

"I  would  not  corrupt  the  child's  mind  by  keeping 
him  cramped  at  his  work  for  fourteen  or  fifteen 
hours  a  day,  like  a  porter.  ..." 

Excessive  mental  work,  an  indiscreet  application 
to  study,  a  rash  thirst  for  knowledge,  all  these, 
according  to  Montaigne,  lead  simply  to  dulness, 
stupidity,  or  insanity. 

"There  is  nothing  so  charming  as  the  little  chil- 
dren of  France,  but  they  generally  disappoint  the 
hopes  that  had  been  founded  on  them.  I  have 
heard  people  of  understanding  assert  that  these 
colleges,  to  which  they  are  sent,  besot  them  thus." 

On  the  subject  of  the  study  of  modern  languages, 
Montaigne  was  three  centuries  in  advance  of  us. 


118  MONTAIGNE 

However,  it  is  through  travel,  and  residence  abroad, 
that  he  would  foster  this  branch  of  education :  — 

"We  should  begin  to  take  our  scholar  about  from 
his  earliest  youth,  and  start  with  those  neighbouring 
nations  the  language  of  which  is  most  different  from 
our  own  (there  is  little  doubt  that  this  refers  to 
Germany),  and  which  the  tongue  cannot  accommo- 
date itself  to,  unless  it  be  trained  early." 

The  "direct  method"  which  we  apply  to-day, 
and  which  consists  in  learning  languages  less  through 
grammar  than  through  practice  and  conversation, 
was  recommended  by  Montaigne  even  for  Latin. 

"Active"  methods,  which  demand  reflection  on 
the  part  of  the  pupil,  have  found  in  our  time  no  more 
zealous  advocate. 

We  require  at  the  present  day  that  some  ethical 
teaching  should  be  given  early,  and  introduce  into 
the  fourth  and  third  classes  *  an  elementary  and 
familiar  course  on  the  duties  of  man.  Montaigne 
Was  already  in  favour  of  this. 

We  live  in  a  busy  century,  when  every  one  is  in 
a  hurry  to  elbow  his  way  to  the  front.  It  was 
already  thus  in  the  days  of  Montaigne,  who  would 
not  allow  his  pupil  to  labour  too  long  at  books.  Life 

1  The  "quatrieme"  and  "troisieme"  of  a  French  Iyc6e  cor- 
respond approximately  to  the  third  and  fourth  forms,  respec- 
tively, of  an  English  public  school.  (Translator's  note.) 


MONTAIGNE  119 

is  short,  he  says,  and  he  complains  that  the  en- 
trance of  young  men  upon  active  careers  is  delayed 
too  long.  "They  are  not  put  to  work  early  enough." 
Too  large  a  share  of  life  is  given  to  "idleness  and 
apprenticeship." 

"Our  child  is  in  a  hurry:  only  the  first  fifteen 
or  sixteen  years  of  his  life  should  be  devoted  to 
pedagogic  training;  the  remainder  should  be  given 
to  action.  .  .  ." 

We  think  of  organizing,  for  the  moral  and  social 
education  of  youth,  public  holidays  and  celebra- 
tions ;  here  again  Montaigne  was  an  initiator :  — 

"Good  governments  are  careful  to  assemble 
the  citizens,  and  to  marshal  them,  not  only  for 
solemn  services  of  worship,  but  also  for  drill  and  for 
games.  ..." 

And  the  result,  he  says,  will  be  this  happy  con- 
sequence, that  "the  society  and  friendship  of  men 
will  be  increased." 

Though  in  education  Montaigne  is  an  innovator, 
and  at  times  an  extremely  bold  one,  in  politics 
he  is  the  most  timorous  of  conservatives.  Do  not 
suggest  to  him  that  any  changes  might  be  made 
in  established  custom,  whatever  evil  he  may  think 
of  it.  He  has  no  love  for  revolutions,  and  he  looks 
upon  any  theoretical  discussion  on  the  best  form 
of  government  as  a  futile  academic  exercise. 


120  MONTAIGNE 

"We  are  fond  of  finding  fault  with  our  present 
condition;  and  yet  I  hold  that  it  is  vice  and  folly 
to  desire  the  rule  of  a  few,  in  a  popular  State;  or, 
under  a  monarchy,  some  other  form  of  govern- 
ment." 

Ah!  no  doubt,  if  all  present  conditions  were 
first  swept  away,  if  an  ideal  city  were  to  be  built 
on  new  ground,  "in  a  new  world,"  Montaigne  would 
have  some  "picture  of  a  policy"  to  propose,  some 
plan  of  government,  different  from  that  which  he 
supports,  without  denying,  be  it  said,  either  its 
abuses  or  its  vices.  But  we  are  face  to  face  with 
a  world  "already  made,  and  formed  to  certain 
customs."  To  try  and  reform  it  would  be,  to  begin 
with,  more  or  less  impossible. 

"Whatever  means  we  be  allowed  in  order  to 
straighten  it  and  reorganize  it,  we  can  hardly  hope 
to  twist  it  out  of  its  accustomed  folds.  .  .  ." 

And  if  a  revolution  were  possible,  is  it  certain 
that  the  State  would  benefit?  Montaigne  is  a 
conservative  especially  because  he  despairs  of 
achieving  anything  better. 

"All  great  changes  shake  the  State  and  intro- 
duce disorder.  .  .  .  The  movements  of  humanity 
cannot  better  its  lot.  .  .  .  Good  does  not  neces- 
sarily succeed  evil ;  another  evil  may  take  its  place." 

Just  as  in  religion  Montaigne  the  sceptic,  the 


MONTAIGNE  121 

rationalist,  concludes  in  favour  of  obedience  to 
Catholicism,  so  in  politics,  dissatisfied  though  he 
is,  he  advocates  respect  for  the  established  order 
of  things;  and  he  endeavours  to  comfort  the  impa- 
tient spirits  who  clamour  for  reform  and  wish  to 
save  the  country  from  the  evils  which  it  is  suffer- 
ing: 

"Our  polity  is  in  evil  plight:  others  have  been 
in  worse,  without  dying.  ..." 

Montaigne,  then,  is  a  conservative.  But  it  some- 
times happens  that  this  conservative  speaks  a 
revolutionary  language.  Or  at  least  he  takes  note, 
without  protest,  of  the  bold  reflections  uttered  by 
strangers,  notable  Americans,  on  certain  institu- 
tions of  the  European  states,  such  as  hereditary 
kingship,  or  the  unequal  distribution  of  wealth. 
He  was  at  Rouen,  towards  1565,  with  Charles  IX. 
There  the  youthful  king  had  occasion  to  receive 
three  natives  of  Brazil,  and  he  conversed  with  them 
for  a  long  time.  They  were  asked  what,  among 
the  French  uses  and  customs,  had  surprised  them 
most.  Among  other  things,  they  answered  that 
what  seemed  to  them  very  strange,  was  that  "so 
many  big-bearded  men,  strong  and  well-armed, 
should  submit  to  obey  a  child.  ..."  They  had 
been  even  more  surprised  to  find  among  the  French 
"men  filled  and  gorged  with  all  kinds  of  comforts," 


122  MONTAIGNE 

while  some  of  their  fellow-beings  " stood  begging 
at  their  gates,  wasted  by  hunger  and  poverty"; 
they  could  not  understand  how  "  these  poor  people 
could  suffer  such  injustice,  why  they  did  not  seize 
the  others  by  the  throat,  or  set  their  houses  on 
fire.  .  .  ." 

Montaigne  is  not  so  much  absorbed  in  the  study 
of  antiquity  as  to  forget  to  open  his  eyes  not  only 
to  the  present,  but  to  the  future  of  modern  societies 
and  of  the  whole  of  humanity.  He  was  acquainted 
with  the  Capitol  and  its  plan  before  he  had  seen  the 
Louvre,  with  the  Tiber  before  he  had  seen  the  Seine ; 
but  that  does  not  prevent  him  from  giving  his 
attention,  with  a  passionate  curiosity,  to  the  ques- 
tions of  discovery  and  conquest  in  the  New  World. 
Thus,  after  a  pompous  description  of  popular  holi- 
days at  Rome,  he  carries  us  without  transition 
to  the  other  shore  of  the  Atlantic :  - 

"Our  world  has  recently  discovered  another,  not 
less  extensive,  less  filled,  less  large-limbed,  and  yet  so 
new  and  so  childish  that  it  is  still  being  taught  its 
a  b  c.  ..."  1 

And  he  proceeds  to  foretell  the  future  destinies 
of  that  child- world;  he  seems  to  have  a  foreboding 
of  its  rapid  development,  and  also  of  the  damage 
it  will  do  one  day  to  the  older  world :  — 

1  Essays,  Book  III,  Chap.  VI. 


MONTAIGNE  123 

"This  other  world  will  just  be  beginning  to  shine 
when  ours  is  growing  dim ;  the  universe  will  be  smit- 
ten with  the  palsy ;  one  of  its  limbs  will  be  numbed, 
and  the  other  in  its  full  vigour." 

Does  not  the  prodigious  intensity  of  life  of  the 
United  States  partly  justify  Montaigne's  predictions? 
He  was  amazed  at  the  "  awful  magnificence  of  the 
towns  of  Cuzco  and  Mexico."  What  would  he  have 
said  of  the  colossal  growth  of  the  cities  of  New  York 
and  Chicago  ? 

Meanwhile  Montaigne  complains,  with  eloquent 
anger,  of  the  conduct  of  the  Spaniards  in  their 
barbarous  conquests.  He  would  have  wished  to 
see  the  populations  of  America,  which  had  no  other 
care  but  "to  spend  life  happily  and  pleasantly," 
in  the  hands  of  peaceful  and  gentle  civilizers,  and 
not  in  the  grip  of  greedy  conquerors,  intent  on  their 
prey.  And,  always  filled  with  admiration  for  an- 
tiquity, he  exclaims :  - 

"What  a  pity  that  so  noble  a  conquest  did  not 
fall  to  the  lot  of  Alexander,  or  of  those  ancient 
Greeks  and  Romans !  .  .  .  They  would  have  gently 
smoothed  and  polished  the  savage  nature  of  these 
peoples;  they  would  have  established  between 
them  and  ourselves  a  brotherly  intercourse  and 
understanding.  On  the  contrary,  what  have  we 
seen?  So  many  towns  levelled  to  the  ground,  so 


124  MONTAIGNE 

many  nations  exterminated,  so  many  millions  of 
people  cut  down  with  the  sword,  and  the  richest  and 
most  beautiful  part  of  the  world  thrown  into  con- 
fusion for  the  sake  of  a  trade  in  pearls  and  pepper !  " 
In  the  contemplation  of  those  American  tribes, 
who  lived  peacefully  under  natural  laws,  before  their 
oppressors  came  and  taught  them  the  ways,  institu- 
tions, and  vices  of  civilization,  Montaigne,  the  thor- 
oughly civilized  Montaigne,  allows  himself  some  Uto- 
pian day-dreams.  He  goes  so  far  as  to  regret,  as 
a  lost  golden  age,  the  savage  life  of  primitive  peo- 
ples. One  of  the  passages  in  which  he  dwells  on 
his  fancies  has  been  copied  by  Shakespeare.  The 
English  poet  had  read  the  Essays  in  the  translation 
published  by  Florio  in  1601.1  Thereupon  a  French 
critic  imagined,  somewhat  rashly,  that  Montaigne 
had  exercised  on  Shakespeare's  mind  a  profound 
influence.2  According  to  him,  the  reading  of  the 
Essays  considerably  modified  the  character  of 
Shakespeare's  dramatic  output  after  1603,  by  intro- 
ducing into  his  dramas  a  new  philosophy.  Julius 
CcBsar,  Hamlet,  Coriolanus,  according  to  him,  are 

1  The   copy   of   Florio's  translation,   with   marginal   notes  by 
Shakespeare,  is  in  the  British  Museum.     It  was  even  declared 
that  an  autograph  of  Shakespeare  had  been  found  in  it,  but  the 
document  appears  to  be  a  forgery. 

2  Cf.  an  article  by  Philarete  Chasles,  in  the  Journal  des  Debats 
(October,  1846). 


MONTAIGNE  125 

full  of  Montaigne.  Those  are  very  bold  affirma- 
tions. All  that  is  certain  is  that  the  author  of 
The  Tempest  put  into  the  mouth  of  one  of  his  char- 
acters, shipwrecked  with  a  few  companions  in  mis- 
fortune on  a  desert  island,  a  tirade  textually  borrowed 
from  Montaigne:  — 

"GONZALO:   I'  the  commonwealth   I  would  by 

contraries 

Execute  all  things;  for  no  kind  of  traffic 
Would  I  admit;  no  name  of  magistrate; 
Letters  should  not  be  known;  riches,  poverty, 
And  use  of  service,  none;  contract,  succession, 
Bourn,  bound  of  land,  tilth,  vineyard,  none; 
No  use  of  metal,  corn,  or  wine,  or  oil; 
No  occupation;  all  men  idle,  all; 
And  women  too,"  etc.1 

Montaigne  happened  to  write,  once,  in  a  moment 
of  ill-humour,  "the  vulgar  rabble.  ..."  He  must 
not,  however,  be  taken  for  an  aristocrat  who  de- 
spises the  people.  He  knows  what  virtues  the  stout 
hearts  of  the  people  may  conceal.  Of  one  of  the 
Three  Good  Women  whose  story  he  tells,  he  says  that 
she  was  of  humble  extraction,  and  that  "among 
those  of  that  condition  it  is  nothing  new  to  meet 
with  instance  of  rare  kindness."  Nurtured  at  first 

1  The  Tempest  (1612),  Act  II,  Sc.  I.  Cf.  Essays,  Book  I,  Chap. 
XXX.  We  italicize  the  words  which  are  textually  borrowed 
from  Montaigne. 


126  MONTAIGNE 

in  a  humble  village  home,  with  common  peasants 
for  his  godfather  and  godmother,  he  never  ceased 
to  " devote  himself  to  the  lowly."  He  was  a  coun- 
try gentleman,  and  if  he  took  little  interest  in  agri- 
culture, of  which  he  had  not  the  remotest  notion, 
he  at  least  sympathized  with  the  farmers.  The 
peasantry,  he  used  to  say,  in  their  manner  of  life  and 
conversation,  are  better  " regulated"  than  philoso- 
phers. 

"Let  us  look  down  at  the  poor  people  whom  we 
see  scattered  on  the  ground,  bending  low  over 
their  work :  they  know  nothing  of  Aristotle  or  Cato, 
of  example  or  precept;  yet  Nature  draws  from 
them  every  day  feats  of  constancy  and  of  patience 
which  are  both  purer  and  harder  to  perform  than 
those  which  we  study  so  diligently  at  school." 

Sometimes,  escaping  from  his  royalist  traditions, 
Montaigne  declares  that  "the  supremacy  of  the 
people  appears  to  him  most  natural  and  most 
equitable."  Equality  was,  in  his  eyes,  "the  founda- 
tion of  equity."  He  was  not  lacking  in  fraternal 
compassion  for  the  humble;  he  showed  it  by  shel- 
tering in  his  castle  little  beggars,  whom  he  tried 
to  rescue  from  beggary  and  poverty,  and  who,  for 
that  matter,  once  clad  and  fed,  bolted,  as  later  on 
the  little  vagabonds  will  do  whom  Pestalozzi  has 
gathered  off  the  highways. 


MONTAIGNE  127 

The  theologians  of  Rome  reproached  Montaigne, 
among  other  things,  with  his  use  and  abuse  of  the 
word  " fortune,"  because  he  thus  sacrificed  Provi- 
dence, the  Divine  will,  in  the  government  of  human 
affairs,  to  force  of  circumstances,  fate,  or  chance. 
Modern  philosophy  levels  the  same  reproach  at 
him,  but  for  other  reasons.  Montaigne  had  not 
sufficient  faith  in  the  power  of  the  will,  in  the  effects 
of  human  reflection.  He  does  not  feel  clearly  enough 
that  it  is  man  who  can  be,  if  he  chooses,  the  artisan 
of  his  own  destiny.  He  looks  upon  "fortune," 
that  is  to  say,  everything  that  is  independent  of  the 
human  will,  as  the  true  ruler  over  this  world.  ' '  Luck 
and  ill  luck,"  he  says,  "are  sovereign  powers." 

We  must  not,  however,  allow  it  to  be  said  that  the 
exercise  of  the  will  was  unknown  to  Montaigne. 
A  volition  is,  in  its  essence,  only  a  strong  thought, 
and  who  would  dream  of  denying  that  he  had 
strong  and  virile  thoughts?  Some  one  went  the 
length  of  saying  of  the  Essays  that  by  the  admira- 
tion and  reverence  which  Montaigne  professes  for 
heroes  of  all  ages,  they  were  in  a  sense  a  school  for 
the  will. 

Montaigne  would  have  been  surprised,  I  think, 
if  some  one  could  have  foretold  to  him  the  extra- 
ordinary success  which  the  future  had  in  store  for 
the  Essays, — editions  innumerable,  translations  into 


128  MONTAIGNE 

foreign  languages,  as  many  readers  as  there  are 
people  in  the  world  with  a  taste  for  letters.  He 
would  have  been  delighted  as  well  as  surprised: 
for  we  must  not  take  him  at  his  word  when  he  affects 
indifference  and  contempt  for  glory.  He  admits 
occasionally  that  praise  was  agreeable  to  him, 
whatever  quarter  it  came  from.  If  he  put  Mile, 
de  Gournay  very  high  among  the  remarkable  per- 
sons of  his  age,  the  esteem  in  which  he  held  her 
was  largely  due  to  the  touching  devotion  shown 
to  him  by  this  young  lady,  whose  mind,  after  all, 
was  not  above  the  average,  but  who  acted  as  a 
harbinger  of  his  future  renown.  We  must  not  take 
him  at  his  word  when  he  speaks  of  the  "nihility" 
of  his  works,  and  professes  to  be  a  man  "of  the 
common  clay."  Insincere  in  this  respect,  with  his 
feigned  modesty,  he  knew  himself  too  well,  he  had 
too  unerring  a  judgment,  not  to  be  conscious  of  his 
own  merit. 

Had  it  been  vouchsafed  to  him  to  know  the  appre- 
ciations —  in  their  extreme  diversity  —  of  the  crowd 
of  commentators  who  have  fastened  on  the  Essays, 
he  would  have  been  flattered  by  their  praise,  and  at 
heart  grieved  by  their  criticisms.  But  he  would  have 
been  even  more  amused  by  their  contradictions.  He 
would  have  taken  pleasure  in  gathering  from  their 
contrary  affirmations  new  arguments  for  scoffing  at 


MONTAIGNE  129 

the  uncertainty  of  human  judgment,  and  for  pointing 
to  the  difficulty  of  adopting  settled  opinions.  And 
without  pretending  to  imitate  his  marvellous  style, 
-  only  a  La  Bruyere  could  make  the  attempt,1  - 
this  is  perhaps  the  tenor,  if  not  the  form,  of  some  of 
the  reflections  which  would  have  occurred  to  him 
while  reading  his  critics :  - 

"I  see,"  he  would  have  thought,  "that,  in  spite 
of  the  long  succession  of  years,  the  inconstancy  of 
human  opinions  has  not  changed  within  the  last 
three  hundred  years:  they  still  fluctuate  and  vary. 
Here,  for  instance,  is  one  of  your  great  ministers 
of  education,  Guizot,  who  has  extolled  me  to  the 
skies  and  loaded  me  with  praise  which  I  should 
never  have  dared  to  aspire  to  in  my  most  presump- 
tuous moods.  Yes,  but  here  is  something  calcu- 
lated to  humble  my  pride,  if  I  could  feel  any;  for 
what  do  I  read  in  the  work  of  Guillaume  Guizot,  the 
son,  I  think,  of  my  panegyrist  ?  That  I  committed 
'the  mistake  of  putting  forth  as  a  programme 
my  own  personal  education,  which  came  to  noth- 
ing. .  .  .'  This  is  rather  hard  on  me,  and  I  appeal 
from  the  son  to  the  father.  Was  my  education  such 
a  total  failure? 

'What  else  does  this  severe  critic  say?    That  I 

1  Cf.  La  Bruyere's  "pastiche"  of  Montaigne  in  the  Characters, 
Chap.  V  :  Of  Society  and  Conversation. 


130  MONTAIGNE 

sketched  'a  plan  of  education  for  a  gentleman  of 
high  standing,  according  to  the  recollections  of  a 
spoilt  child.  .  .  .'  I,  a  'spoilt  child'?  Why,  you 
forget  that  I  was  brought  up  in  a  village,  roughly, 
like  a  rustic;  that  I  was  trained  to  the  humblest 
and  commonest  manner  of  living,  to  frugality  and 
austerity;  that  if  peradventure  my  life  did  not 
conform  to  the  habits  of  my  early  youth,  the  fault 
lay,  not  with  the  education  which  I  had  received, 
but  with  my  own  inclinations.  You  forget  that  I 
was  left  in  this  poor  village  so  long  as  I  was  at  nurse, 
and  even  after  that;  and  that  later,  when  I  was 
hardly  six  years  of  age,  I  was  shut  up  in  the  '  College 
de  Guyenne,'  in  a  jail  for  captive  youth.  It  was  said 
to  be  the  best  school  in  France,  with  excellent 
teachers,  at  least  two  of  whom,  Buchanan  and 
Muret,  have  remained  famous;  but  still,  it  was  a 
school,  and  caresses  were  few. 

"  It  is  true  that  my  excellent  father,  the  best  that 
ever  was,  when  he  kept  me  near  him,  dealt  with  me 
in  a  mild  and  free  manner,  exempt  from  any  rigorous 
subjection,  wishing  to  train  my  soul  in  all  gentle- 
ness and  liberty ;  but  it  was  only  when  I  was  at  home 
that  I  enjoyed  this  liberty,  and  until  the  age  of  thir- 
teen I  was  scarcely  ever  at  Montaigne  except  in 
holiday  time. 

"It  is   true  also  that,  on  my  return  from  nurse, 


MONTAIGNE  131 

my  father  wrapped  me  up  in  the  tenderest  solici- 
tude, carried  to  such  a  superstitious  excess  that  he 
was  careful  to  have  me  wakened  by  the  sound  of 
some  musical  instrument,  lest  my  brain  should  be  in- 
jured by  too  sudden  an  awakening.  Wherein  perhaps 
lies  the  reason  that  I  never  loved  music,  having  had 
a  surfeit  of  what  I  was  given  to  taste  prematurely. 

''Socrates,  who  spoke  much  of  himself,  as  I  also 
have  done,  said  of  the  dialogues  of  Plato,  if  we  are 
to  believe  tradition:  'How  many  fine  things  that 
young  man  makes  me  say,  which  I  never  thought 
of ! '  I  might  say  likewise  of  some  of  my  historians 
that  they  have  discovered  in  me  qualities,  and 
perhaps  also  faults,  of  which  I  was  unaware.  And 
yet,  God  knows  how  I  studied  and  watched  myself 
throughout  my  life,  how  I  observed  my  inner  self 
und  meditated  on  it !  Thus  I  learn  from  Mr.  Griin  l 
that  I  was  an  economist.  That  is  going  beyond  the 
truth,  though  it  is  a  fact  that  during  my  municipal 
administration  I  advocated  freedom  of  trade,  and 
did  what  I  could  to  turn  the  citizens  of  Bordeaux 
away  from  politics  by  directing  their  activity  towards 
commerce.  Others  have  said  that  I  was  a  philolo- 
gist, because  I  wrote  the  chapter  on  Chargers.  .  .  . 

"Some  have  complained  that  I  was  over-com- 
municative. But  when  I  read  all  the  works  which 

1  M.  Grun,  Vie  publique  de  Montaigne. 


132  MONTAIGNE 

patient  scholars  accumulate  on  my  memory,  I  find 
that  I  had  not  told  everything.  How  touching 
to  behold,  three  centuries  after  my  death,  men  of 
the  nineteenth  century  labouring  with  such  perse- 
verance to  elucidate  the  obscure  points  of  my  life, 
ferreting  right  and  left !  Should  I  not  be  particularly 
grateful  to  Dr.  Payen,  who  spent  over  twenty  years 
rummaging  in  every  nook  and  cranny  of  my  life 
and  work?  He  became  smitten  with  a  real  passion 
for  me.  Yes,  his  love  for  me  was  equal  to  that  of 
my  dear  'daughter  of  alliance,'  Mile,  de  Gournay. 
And  to  how  many  others  do  I  not  owe  thanks? 
They  have  studied  even  the  arm-chair  in  which  I 
sat  in  my  library,  and  which  Was  rediscovered  in 
the  attics  of  the  castle  of  Montaigne.1  I  never  sat 
in  it  for  long ;  my  mind  slept  when  my  legs  were  not 
in  motion;  and  in  this  respect,  I,  who  frequented 
every  philosophic  sect  of  antiquity,  was  a  faithful 
follower  of  the  peripatetic  sect,  whose  disciples 
studied  as  they  walked. 

"But  among  all  those  who  have  recently  busied 
themselves  with  me,  there  are  two  in  particular, 
whom  I  distinguish,  and  put  by  themselves.  Firstly, 
Mr.  Champion,  who  deserves  this  credit,  that  he 
read  my  work  from  beginning  to  end,  without  tiring 

1  Cf.  the  print  entitled  le  Fauteuil  de  Montaigne,  by  M.  Gely, 
Perigueux,  1865. 


MONTAIGNE  133 

of  my  prolixity  and  self-repetition.  Among  my 
critics  are  there  many  who  could  say  as  much? 
No  doubt,  I  could  debate  with  him  the  question 
whether,  as  he  believes,  I  several  times  modified  my 
way  of  thinking,  and  went  through  several  phases; 
whether,  as  he  declares,  two  souls  cohabited  within 
me ;  whether,  in  short,  there  was,  as  people  say  to- 
day, an  evolution  in  my  character  and  my  thought. 
But  this  discussion  would  lead  us  too  far,  and  I  shall 
merely  refer  Mr.  Champion  to  one  of  the  men  who 
have  analyzed  the  spirit  of  the  Essays  with  most 
insight,  to  Sainte-Beuve,  who  is  willing  to  admit 
that,  after  all,  'there  was  some  unity  in  my  ideas.' 
I  have  expressly  stated  that  my  judgment,  almost 
from  my  birth,  was  one;  and  that  with  regard  to 
universal  opinions,  I  took  up  from  my  childhood 
the  standpoint  which  I  was  to  adhere  to.  And  with 
all  due  respect  to  Mr.  Champion,  there  is  one  point 
on  which  he  is  certainly  mistaken;  never,  at  any 
time  of  my  life,  did  I  give  way  to  '  violent  party 
spirit  and  to  a  sort  of  fanaticism.' 

"The  other  is  Mr.  Emile  Faguet.  He  has  under- 
stood me.  I  can  almost  see  lurking  about  his  lips 
the  ironical  smile  that  used  to  play  on  my  own. 
He  is  the  true  heir  to  my  thought,  and  if  he  had 
lived  in  my  time,  I  would  have  made  him  my  'son 
of  alliance/  the  brother  of  Mile,  de  Gournay. 


134  MONTAIGNE 

"Not  that  he  deals  so  very  tenderly  with  me. 
He  is  much  more  inclined  to  severity.  But  that  is 
not  to  be  wondered  at,  since  he  is  undertaking  to 
criticise  me.  When  I  went  over  my  own  works,  I 
used  to  feel  out  of  temper  with  myself.  Mr.  Faguet 
maintains,  for  instance,  that  I  will  teach  children 
nothing ;  at  least,  little  or  nothing.  And  yet  did  I 
not  write,  appropriating  one  of  Plutarch's  thoughts : 
'What  should  children  learn?  What  they  need  to 
know  to  grow  into  men'?  And  again,  is  it  fair  to 
say  that  in  the  government  of  children,  I  believed 
in  a  laisser  faire  policy,  and  even  in  allowing  them 
to  do  nothing?  Because  I  have  confessed  that  I 
had  no  taste  for  tedious  work,  should  it  be  inferred 
that  I  ever  advised  against  work,  against  attractive 
work,  founded  on  affection  and  willing  interest? 
And  have  not  your  best  pcdagogists  reached  the 
same  conclusion  ?  Do  they  not  also  recommend  that 
the  child's  attention  be  engaged  by  making  his 
work  pleasurable? 

'"To  judge  fairly  of  a  man,  }rou  must  take  his 
circumstances  into  account,  you  must  apply  to  him 
what  is  now  called  the  theory  of  environment. 
Before  the  century  in  which  I  lived,  there  had  been 
an  abuse  of  vain  and  barren  science,  bristling  with 
thorns  and  briers.  Perhaps  I  inclined  somewhat 
too  complacently  in  the  opposite  direction,  towards 


MONTAIGNE  135 

easy  and  pleasant  study.  There  had  been  also 
an  abuse  of  harsh  discipline,  against  which  it  was 
necessary  to  react.  Perhaps  if  I  had  lived  in  a 
time  like  yours,  when  there  is  a  complaint  of  general 
'slackness/  I  should  have  shown  myself  firmer  and 
more  severe.  That  is  what  Mr.  Faguet  has  clearly 
understood,  when  he  observes  that  I  was  addressing 
men  who  were  lacking  in  just  those  faculties  of 
moderation.  I  inclined  a  little,  and  perhaps  a 
little  too  far,  on  the  side  towards  which  they  had  no 
inclination  whatever. 

"He  is  also  deserving  of  praise  for  not  always 
taking  me  seriously.  I  wrote  the  Essays  only  to 
occupy  my  hours  of  loneliness,  for  my  own  amuse- 
ment. But  what  pleases  me  especially  is  that  he 
has  defended  me,  after  some  others,  against  that 
reproach  of  scepticism  which  has  fastened  on  my 
name  like  a  legend.  Ah !  I  often  harboured  doubts, 
to  be  sure  !  I  put  away  from  me,  with  all  my  might, 
both  prejudice  and  superstition.  But  on  many  a 
point  I  had  faith,  and  a  firm  faith.  I  had  faith  in 
justice,  not  in  human  justice,  which  is  often  most 
unjust  and  iniquitous,  but  in  essential,  natural,  and 
universal  justice.  I  believed  in  tolerance,  and 
practised  it.  And  most  of  all,  I  believed  in  the 
obligation  to  seek  and  to  tell  the  truth.  Truth  is 
so  great  a  thing  that  we  should  scorn  no  undertaking 


136  MONTAIGNE 

that  can  lead  us  towards  it.  To  speak  the  truth 
is  the  very  foundation  of  virtue.  Truth  should  be 
loved  for  its  own  sake.  And  it  is  no  doubt  because 
I  loved  truth  that  in  spite  of  a  few  censors  who  have 
jeered  at  me,  I  have  met  with  many  readers  who 
have  esteemed  and  loved  me." 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

BESIDES  the  chapter  entitled  Of  the  Institution  and  Educa- 
tion of  Children,  Bk.  I,  Ch.  XXV,  one  should  consult,  in  the 
Essays,  other  chapters  in  which  Montaigne  also  speaks  his 
mind  on  the  subject  of  Education :  Bk.  I,  Ch.  XXIV,  Of 
Pedantry;  Bk.  I,  Ch.  XXII,  Of  Custom;  — Bk.  II,  Ch.  VIII, 
Of  the  Affection  of  Fathers  for  their  Children;  Bk.  II,  Ch.  XXXI, 
Of  Anger ;  Bk.  Ill,  Ch.  Ill,  Of  Three  Commerces  or  Societies; 
Bk.  Ill,  Ch.  VIII,  Of  the  Art  of  Conferring;  Bk.  Ill,  Ch.  XIII, 
Of  Experience,  etc. 

The  editions  of  Montaigne  are  extremely  numerous ;  we  shall 
only  quote  the  more  important.  Montaigne  published  during  his 
lifetime  two  editions:  the  first,  in  1580,  at  Bordeaux,  in  2  vols.; 
this  edition  includes  only  the  first  two  Books;  the  second, 
in  1588,  Paris,  1  vol. ;  the  latter  included  a  third  Book  and  six 
hundred  additions  to  the  first  two.  Mile,  de  Gournay  next  pub- 
lished two  editions  of  the  Essays,  one  in  1595,  revised  and  in- 
creased by  a  third  more  than  in  the  preceding  editions,  from  notes 
written  by  Montaigne  during  the  last  four  years  of  his  life; 
the  other  in  1635,  in  which  the  original  text  is  often  altered. 

Edition  by  Coste,  London,  1724,  often  reprinted. 

Edition  of  1802,  published  from  a  copy  of  the  1588  edition, 
preserved  at  Bordeaux,  and  which  Montaigne  had  again  filled 
with  notes. 

Edition  of  J.  V.  Le  Clerc,  1826,  reprinted  in  1863,  with  a 
Preface  by  Prevost-Paradol,  4  vols.  in  8vo.  This  edition  has 
become  classical,  and  we  have  followed  it  in  our  quotations. 

Variorum  edition  of  Charles  Louandre,  4  vols.  in  12mo,  Paris, 
1862. 

137 


138  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Edition  of  Dezeimeris  and  Barkhauscn,  2  vols.,  text  of  1580, 
the  first  two  Books  only,  Bordeaux,  1870. 

Edition  of  Combet  and  Royet,  4  vols.,  Paris,  1870. 

Edition  of  Motheau  and  Jouaust,  text  of  1588,  7  vols.,  Paris, 
1886. 

It  would  be  out  of  the  question  to  enumerate  here  all  the 
critical  and  historical  works  which  Montaigne  has  inspired. 
We  shall  mention  only  the  more  recent  and  interesting. 

CONORT,  Etude  sur  Montaigne  et  ses  doctrines  pedagogiques, 
in  the  Revue  pedagogique,  1880-1881. 

MME.  JULES  FAVRE,  Montaigne,  moraliste  et  pedagogue,  Paris, 
1887. 

PAUL  STAFFER,  Montaigne,  in  the  collection :  Lcs  grands 
Ecrivains  francais,  Paris,  1895. 

PAUL  STAFFER,  La  Farnille  et  les  Amis  de  Montaigne,  Paris, 
1896. 

GUILLAUME  GUIZOT,  Montaigne,  Etudes  et  Fragments,  Paris, 
1899. 

PAUL  BONNEFON,  Montaigne,  I'Homme  et  I'CEuvre,  Paris, 
1899. 

EDME  CHAMPION,  Introduction  aux  Essais  de  Montaigne, 
Paris,  1900. 

Among  the  literary  historians  who  have  dealt  at  some  length 
with  Montaigne,  we  may  quote  :  — 
FELIX  HEMON,  Cours  de  Littcrature. 
E.  FAGUET,  Seizieme  Siecle,  Etudes  litteraires,  Paris,  1894. 

Various  special  editions  have  been  given  of  the  chapter  on 
the  Institution  and  Education  of  Children. 

E.  REAUME,  Rabelais  et  Montaigne  pedagogues,  Paris,  1886. 

F.  HEMON,  De  I' Institution  des  Enfants,  Paris,   1888. 

G.  COMPAYRE,  De  I'lnstitution  dcs  Enfants,  Paris,  1888. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  139 

BIBLIOGRAPHY  FOR  ENGLISH  READERS  ' 

The  standard  translations  of  Montaigne's  Essays  into  English 
are  those  of  John  Florio  (1003)  and  of  C.  Cotton  (1GS3),  the 
former  of  which,  in  spite  of  many  errors  on  points  of  detail, 
perhaps  most  closely  approximates  to  the  spirit  and  style  of 
the  original. 

These  translations  have  frequently  been  reprinted  and  edited. 
Serviceable  editions  are  the  following :  — 

Cotton's  translation,  edited  by  W.  C.  Hazlitt,  3  vols. 

Florio 's  translation,  edited  by  Professor  H.  Morley,  with 
introduction  and  glossary. 

Florio 's  translation,  edited  by  J.  H.  McCarthy,  2  vols. 

Editions  of  selected  essays  are  also  numerous,  one  of  the 
best  being  perhaps  that  in  Blackic's  Red  Letter  Library,  with 
an  introduction  and  notes  by  Charles  Whibley.  The  translation 
is  Florio's  in  modern  spelling,  and  the  fifteen  essays  given 
include  that  on  the  Institution  and  Education  of  Children. 

The  following  are  among  the  most  noteworthy  studies  on 
Montaigne  which  have  appeared  in  English :  — 

R.  W.  EMERSON,  Montaigne,  the  Sceptic  (in  Representative  Men). 

REV.  W.  L.  COLLINS,  Montaigne  (lilackwood's  Foreign  Clas- 
sics for  English  Readers). 

MARK  PATTISON,  Life  of  Montaigne  (in  his  Essays,  edited 
by  Professor  II.  Xettleship). 

GEORGE  SAINTSBURY,  Article  Montaigne  in  the  Encyclo- 
paedia Britannica. 

See  also :  — 

DR.  D.  XASMITH,  Makers  of  Modern  Thought. 

SAINTE-BEUVE,  Essays,  translated  by  Elisabeth  Lee. 

SIR  JAMES   FITZ.IAMES  STEPHEN,  Hora!  Sabbaticc?,  Series  I. 

1  Compiled  by  the  Translator. 


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